The third time’s the charm, as they say. For the past two years, we have been previewing Sundance’s best and brightest talent—and future Hollywood stars—such as John Boyega, Jonathan Groff and Jenny Slate, so we’ve gotten the hang of it by now. Having launched amidst all the festival buzz in 2012, Verge’s annual party has now become one of Park City’s hottest tickets of the week.
“We’re all about discovering new talent, and Sundance is the best place in the world for that,” says Verge’s CEO and Creative Director, Jeff Vespa, who has been photographing famous faces at the festival for the past 20 years. “I’m always looking out for interesting, breakout performances, so for me, Sundance is our main event.”
The lucky seven featured this year includes a mix of newcomers as well as actors with a few films under their belt. (In the case of The Grand Budapest Hotel’s Tony Revolori, his credits include that Golden Globe-winning movie.) All of them, however, have one thing in common: They are Sundance virgins. “Just as Sundance puts a premium on premiering movies, Verge celebrates these gifted newcomers on their introduction to the film festival,” says Jeff.
That said, the assembled actors and actresses were already familiar with one another. “A lot of them had worked together before or had mutual friends in common, including past Verge cover stars,” Jeff points out. The sense of excitement and camaraderie in the studio proved to be infectious during the photo shoots; there was no trace of the competitive attitudes that one might expect from young people who audition for the same movie roles. “They all became fast friends in the end, which is awesome because they will be working together more and more as they grow up together in this business,” says Jeff.
Needless to say, we look forward to working with them all in the future, too.
James Patrick Herman
Editorial Director