Lola Tung, Whitney Peak Among Nine Fast-Rising Stars Everyone Wants
Lola Tung, Whitney Peak, Tom Francis and Keyla Monterroso Mejia are part of a 2026 class of nine rising screen stars drawing audiences and casting directors. Monterroso Mejia, 28, has gone from struggling to get into rooms to working alongside comedy's biggest names.
Nine fast-rising stars everyone in Hollywood seems to want in 2026 span Broadway stand-outs, young-adult streaming successes and franchise players, including Lola Tung, Whitney Peak, Tom Francis and Keyla Monterroso Mejia. All are catching the attention of audiences and the entertainment industry alike.
Some are just breaking out. Others are breaking bigger.
Who is on the list
After years on Amazon's The Summer I Turned Pretty, Tung is preparing for prestige roles in anticipated features from A24 and Neon. Peak is readying her biggest parts to date in the latest Hunger Games movie and in Miami Vice, where she joins Michael B. Jordan.
Francis is building his onscreen credentials after a Tony-nominated musical run. Monterroso Mejia, in the assessment of the class write-up, may be the most prolific star working in TV right now.
The 2026 group joins earlier Next Gen alumni such as Zendaya, Paul Mescal, Florence Pugh and, more recently, Black Panther newcomer David Jonsson.
Demand is already high. Sophie Nélisse, a standout of Heated Rivalry and Yellowjackets, put it plainly: "Career-wise, this is the busiest I've ever been."
Keyla Monterroso Mejia's climb
Network sitcoms are nearly extinct, and streaming comedies run to single-digit episode counts. Monterroso Mejia has still managed ubiquity. She plays executive assistant Petra on Apple TV's The Studio, opposite Seth Rogen, and spars with Larry David on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.
She has also dropped into Abbott Elementary and Nobody Wants This. On film, she has shared the screen with Keke Palmer in 2025's One of Them Days and Will Ferrell in the Prime Video comedy You're Cordially Invited. More projects are on the way.
It did not start easily. She attended a performing arts high school in Pomona, California, and went straight into auditioning, but struggled to get into rooms. She mostly landed student work and short films.
"I tried for years and years — and then: King COVID," she said. Self-taped auditions became the norm, and decision-makers had more time for unknowns.
Her climb began in earnest with Curb. She was first asked to audition for a part with five lines. A week later she had a callback on Zoom with the producers and David himself. The role grew into a guest-starring arc across the show's final two seasons.
Abbott creator-star Quinta Brunson later told Rogen to look at her as he cast The Studio. Monterroso Mejia first auditioned for Quinn, the role that went to Chase Sui Wonders, but was offered Petra after that first audition.
She has wrestled with how to explain her success. "I wrestled a lot with how much of it was luck, how much of it was talent and how much of it was work ethic — or, maybe people are just kind," she said. At 28, she has landed on a new answer: "Maybe I'm the common denominator."
