The only real answer here is Emilia Clarke.
She’s the only one among the cast who has anything resembling a rising career headlining profitable movies.
- Me Before You – budget $20M, made $208M (her biggest success to date)
- Terminator Genisys – budget $155M, made $440M (critical flop but at least it didn’t bleed money)
- Solo – budget $300M, made $392M (terrible flop in every way, but thankfully she didn’t headline the movie)
It’s not amazing, but it’s the best we’ve got from the upcoming cast of Game of Thrones. Frankly, none of them look to have particularly promising careers, but if I had to choose I’d say Emilia Clarke has the best shot.
Peter Dinklage is popular but there aren’t many starring roles he can take in the industry, people just don’t write stories about dwarves in Hollywood. He will continue to get roles in many big movies, most likely, but he will never be the star of them.
Maisie Williams just doesn’t have the star power nor the looks, and will probably be relegated to small roles in television at best in a few years, if she even continues her acting career. She has publicly said that she isn’t comfortable with the attention fame brings, and she is sick of social media as a result. She is probably not long for the acting world.
Sophie Turner is getting a lot of attention now for her potential, and while that is true that she is the one with the most potential, she simply hasn’t shown any results yet the way Emilia has, so I give the nod to the Mad Queen. I mean, come on, Barely Lethal? That film was almost as bad as Jem and the Holograms. X-Men Apocalypse is her biggest and only real theatrical film on her resume and it’s about on the same level as Emilia Clarke’s Terminator Genisys, except she wasn’t the star of the movie. Dark Phoenix will be her true proving ground, so we’ll find out if she has a real career and star power after that.
Some of the older actors are in their twilight years. Some have had good long careers, like Lena Heady and Sean Bean, there’s little point talking about them further as they’re already established.