From Olympic athletes to award-winning actors, Europe’s brightest stars are international players. We scoured the continent for the finest candidates in music, film, television and sport to find entertainment’s new elite.
FORBES’ second annual list of Europe’s 30 Under 30 in Entertainment includes electronic dance music’s latest superstar Kygo, Hollywood-favorite Dev Patel and U.S.-based sports wunderkinds such as Los Angeles Kings captain Anze Kopitar.
Actor and writer Michaela Coel penned and starred in miniseries “Chewing Gum,” for which she won a… [+]
All boast impressive credentials. Norwegian DJ-producer Kygo’s down-tempo dance hits including “Firestone” and “Stay” helped his Cloud Nine reach No. 11 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. In 2016, he became the fastest artist to hit 1 billion streams on Spotify with his sunny tracks.
“There are no beaches and summers are short in Norway so maybe I was sitting in my room dreaming about summer and dreaming about beaches,” Kygo, born Kyrre Gørvell-Dahll, told FORBES last year. “Maybe that was the reason why I started making that music.”
Many have global influence. Take Julie Adenuga: As one of three anchors on Apple Music’s Beats 1 radio station, which airs across 100 countries, the Brit has emerged as a global tastemaker for the world’s musical appetites. Among the 30 Under 30 Europe honoree’s interview subjects: 23-year-old Stormzy, born Michael Omari. The unsigned grime artist has sold out two U.K. tours, played shows across the U.S. and Europe, and made his way onto the official U.K. singles chart–and the 30 Under 30 Europe list.
Full list: 30 Under 30 Europe Entertainment 2017
In order to form the list, we invited three industry veterans to serve as judges: Director/Producer SJ Clarkson, who has worked on shows like Jessica Jones and Dexter; Afrojack, one of the world’s biggest DJ-producers and a 30 Under 30 alum, and Mike Ozanian, Assistant Managing Editor of FORBES Sports Money.
Within music, honorees span genres. Hat-wearing singer-songwriter James Bay’s Chaos and the Calm earned him three 2016 Grammy award nominations, including one for best new artist. Meanwhile electropop’s new French royalty, Christine and The Queens, has won over fans worldwide with hits including the English-language single “Tilted.”
Onscreen, multi-talented acts such as writer/actor Michaela Coel make the cut thanks to their original productions. Coel wrote and starred in comedic miniseries Chewing Gum, which earned her a BAFTA for best female performance in a comedy. Since airing on Netflix, the show has brought her wickedly funny humor to international audiences.
“In drama school they do these big shows and period dramas and I felt that none of those shows were representing me as a person and I knew I wouldn’t be cast in any of those when I left school,” remembers Coel. “I decided to write my own one woman show and that was called Chewing Gum Dreams.”
Already known to U.S. audiences is Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark in HBO’s smash hit, Game of Thrones. When the series wraps up, she will head to the big screen, starring alongside Jared Leto in the forthcoming Berlin, I Love You.
On the silver screen, Patel first became a global star with 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire, which he followed with critically-praised roles in HBO’s The Newsroom and in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. He makes the list this year thanks to a mature and captivating performance in Lion, in which he stars as an adopted young Australian seeking his birth family in India.
Full coverage: 30 Under 30 Europe
In sports, UFC’s reigning Irishman Conor McGregor joins the list, as does France’s Estelle Mossely, who scored her country’s first boxing gold at the Rio Olympics. She is joined by fellow Olympian Nafissatou Thiam, who won gold for Belgium in the heptathlon at this year’s games. On court, 21-year-old Latvian Kristaps Porzingis has made quite a name for himself in the NBA, setting a rookie record by scoring over 1,000 points and more than 75 three-pointers.
From the track to the TV, the future of entertainment in Europe and beyond looks very bright. Stay tuned.
The Europe 30 Under 30 Entertainment list is edited by Natalie Robehmed and Madeline Berg.
See All Of This Year’s 30 Under 30 Categories Here
See The Europe 30 Under 30 Entertainment Class Of 2017 Full List Here