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There’s a new "It" girl in Hollywood -- and she’s smart and glows.
With the 2010 Oscars announced, An Education star Carey Mulligan -- up for Best Actress honors -- is one of the newest It Girls. The dimpled English beauty, 24, is intelligent and pretty. She’s way beyond that old image of the bookish girl in movies, who had to remove her glasses and undo her ponytail for the audiences to view the sexiness beneath the smarts.
And the poised Mulligan, who will walk down the red carpet at the Academy Awards with the ease of an actress who knows it’s an honor just to be nominated, is part of a new generation of smart girls who glow on screen that also includes Zoe Saldana and the lesser known but soon-to-be huge Mia Wasikowska.
New Jersey native Saldana, 31, had two monster sci-fi hits last year: Avatar and Star Trek. While it’s a challenge to understand where the actress ends and her blue-animated avatar begins, that role shows her off as a damsel who refuses to be in distress. She’s Pocahontas with her own quiver of arrows and an attitude.
And, in Star Trek, stepping into the go-go boots of Nyota Uhura (originally played by actress Nichelle Nichols in the famed TV series and subsequent films), Saldana has the crisp impatience of an honor student who doesn’t have time to play games with the captain of the football team. It doesn’t take a Vulcan mind meld to see that Zachary Quinto’s Spock is seriously into her brain, and their attraction is one of mutual understanding (although how hot she looks in her uniform mini doesn’t hurt!).
As for Mia Wasikowska, fans of HBO’s In Treatment saw her suicidal teen gymnast Sophie unpack her psyche for Gabriel Byrne’s therapist. The Aussie actress, 20, resembles a young Gwyneth Paltrow without the haughty air. She plays the title character in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (out March 5) opposite Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. And in the brilliant Sundance hit that stirred up a bidding war, The Kids Are All Right, coming to theaters next year, she plays an 18-year-old valedictorian who has two mommies – and is Stanford University-bound.
All three actresses are smart females that glow. They’re paving the way as positive role models, without giving the erroneous impression that being smart in a man’s world is easy.
Which young actress do you think is a positive role model? Chime in below!
PLUS:
PHOTOS: Mia Wasikowska and other breakout stars of 2010!
