G-S-T Top 10 – Most Bankable Hollywood Actresses

Editor’s Note: Go,See,Talk presents this post from our guest contributing writer and friend of GST from across the pond. Dan Stephens is the managing editor and founder of  Top10Films.co.uk. Not one to muck about with editorials and irreverent news articles, Dan and his fellow contributors hammer out awesome and definitive Top 10 lists. So have a look at his latest concoction and we implore you to check out some of this other stuff.

I was asked recently by a friend to name my top 10 favorite actresses. I couldn’t answer. It wasn’t because there were so many great ones to choose from (like picking my all time number one movie), it was because I couldn’t think of one. The ones that kept popping into my head weren’t there because of their acting ability. But I gave it some thought and decided, since the top 10 that was forming in my mind was made almost entirely of current actresses, that a better answer was to a different question; Who is the most bankable Hollywood female right now? Well, thanks to a little inspiration from a recent Forbes list I was able to assemble this post. The celebrities below are still selling the most cinema tickets and commanding box office receipts and unsurprisingly, these mega stars of Hollywood today were the ones appearing in my mind’s eye.

Without further ado, here’s my Top 10 Most Bankable Hollywood Actresses…

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10. Meryl Streep 

Meryl Streep is undoubtedly the most talented actress on this list. As highlighted in Streep’s top 10 films she is both a versatile actress and one who can deliver across the decades and across platforms with theatre and television also listed on her CV. She is also the most decorated actor for nominations in both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes, winning three Oscars and eight Globes. Whether you look at The Deer Hunter in 1978 or The Iron Lady in 2011, Streep is a wonderful actress who has proven time and time again that she is the best in the business.

9. Sarah Jessica Parker 

Who’d have thought the young teen with purple hair from that 1980s science-fiction film about the boy who goes flying about in a spaceship could become one of Hollywood’s richest actresses. Thanks in no small part to the success of television series Sex and the City (which then spawned two awful films that made a killing at the box office), Parker remains one of the most bankable stars in Tinseltown.

8. Charlize Theron 

Charlize Theron has taken a giant leap into the highest paid actresses category and her box office appeal has risen in light of several successful movies in the last year. Snow White and The Huntsmen, Prometheus and Young Adult have propelled her back into the public’s consciousness after a couple of years out of the limelight between 2009 and 2011.

7. Angelina Jolie 

Her off screen antics first with Billy Bob Thornton and the whole carrying each other’s blood around their necks in glass vials, to an alleged affair with Brad Pitt while he was married to Jennifer Aniston, to her adopting children from various parts of the third world, has ensured she’s always on hand for the vultures of tabloid media. Being Jon Voight’s daughter may have given her many of life’s luxuries (including her first film role) but it also made her upbringing a little more troubled than most. Perhaps still better known for her life behind the cameras, Jolie’s celebrity is good enough to command strong box office receipts. Indeed, Forbes has named her the highest paid actress of the year two times in the last five years.

6. Julia Roberts

Julia Roberts has still got it but in recent years she has been taken over by a few actresses. She’s sexy, she has bags of talent, and she has a great body of work to prove she can play a multitude of roles. My favorite is undoubtedly Erin Brockovich but who can forget the likes of Pretty Woman, My Best Friend’s Wedding and Notting Hill. She might have earned less than half the salary made by this top 10 lists’ number one but she’s been a bankable Hollywood star for more than twenty years.

5. Jennifer Aniston 

I’ve been fairly outspoken in the past regarding my, shall we say, lack of enthusiasm for Jennifer Aniston’s acting, but she knows how to make a lot of money. Of course, anyone earning $1 million per 22-minute episode on Friends isn’t going to do a movie for anything less than a multimillion dollar deal. Likewise, the studios aren’t going to give her the money unless she’s making it back in box office receipts. But she does it. Time and again her films, many of them completely uninspired romantic comedies, make mega bucks in theatres. Over the last few years she’s appeared in films such as Bruce Almighty, Along Came Polly, Marley and Me, Rumour Has It, The Bounty Hunter, Horrible Bosses and Wanderlust.

4. Sandra Bullock 

Like Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock has the talent to attract audiences to her films based on more than just her looks. Beginning her career in the 1980s, she rose to prominence in 1993’s Demolition Man. Huge blockbusters like Speed and While You Were Sleeping in the 1990s, and Miss Congeniality and The Proposal in the 2000s, have solidified her as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Her Academy Award for The Blind Side highlighted just how good an actress she is.

3. Cameron Diaz 

Cameron Diaz burst on to the screen in Jim Carrey-fronted The Mask as the beautifully alluring Tina Carlyle. Since then she’s enjoyed a string of hits such as There’s Something About Mary, Being John Malkovich, Charlie’s Angels, Shrek, and Knight and Day. Like Kristen Stewart, she isn’t the most talented actress and has found herself in very similar roles (although Being John Malkovich showed she wasn’t afraid to experiment) yet she has proven she demands box office attention.

2. Kristen Wiig 

She’s a relatively new name on the circuit but Kristen Wiig has actually been around for quite some time. She’s had small roles in films such as Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Ghost Town, Adventureland, and Paul but rose to prominence thanks to her exploits as both writer and star of critical and commercial hit Bridesmaids. Thanks to Bridemaids’ worldwide success Wiig earned more than most actors in 2011. Today, she finds herself as one of the Dream Factory’s most bankable stars.

1. Kristen Stewart

Kristen Stewart earned more money than any other actress between 2011 and mid-2012. Her money haul was thanks largely to the Twilight series, which saw millions of adoring fans fall head over heel in love with. Kristen Stewart is hardly the most talented actress, so far offering an acting range that flirts between quietly alluring and moody brat but she has a presence in front of the camera that strikes a chord with so many. Despite her inability to smile she does exhibit an inner strength that is obviously appealing. With her box office bank-ability, quiet defiance on screen and tabloid-heaven off screen romance with co-star Robert Pattinson she is definitely a Hollywood star worthy of the number one spot.

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Daniel Stephens feeds his unhealthy obsession with the top 10 list by overseeing proceedings at Top10Films.co.uk as founder and editor.