5 Things You Need To Know About The 2016 EE Bafta Rising Star Nominees

From sharing a bed with Justin Timberlake to celebrity crushes on Meryl Streep, these are the 5 things you need to know about the EE Bafta Rising Star nominees...

John Boyega

1. If you haven’t heard this name being batted around recently, you’ve officially been living under a rock. John Boyega plays the character of Finn in the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, a Stormtrooper turned accidental Resistance fighter who befriends Poe Dameron. John was such a big fan of Star Wars that he even asked Harrison Ford to sign his Han Solo dolls...

2. He spent 7 months auditioning for the part of Finn and it seems to have paid off as Star Wars is on track to become one of the highest-grossing films in history. Not bad for a newbie.

3. John was born in Peckham, South London to Nigerian parents and the first role he ever played was a leopard in his primary school play when he was 5 years old. Picture evidence please, John!

4. He’s a massive fan of Marvel Comics and he’s stated that he’d love to play the character, the Black Panther. We back that!

5. John was included in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list alongside his fellow nominee, Taron Egerton.

Taron Egerton

1. You may recognize Egerton’s boyish good looks from the box office smash, Kingsman: The Secret Service where he played Gary ‘Eggsy’ Unwin opposite Colin Firth, Michael Caine and Samuel L. Jackson. Filming for the sequel will begin this year.

2. You may also recognize him from the film Legend where he played the rumoured lover of Ronnie Kray (played by Tom Hardy), Edward ‘Mad Teddy’ Smith.

3. You’ll be seeing him again as the title role in the film Eddie the Eagle opposite Hugh Jackman and the new musical animation comedy Sing alongside Matthew McConaughey.

4. While Taron was born in England and later moved to Wales, he considers himself Welsh ‘through and through’ and even speaks conversational Welsh. Rydym ffansi iddo hyd yn oed yn fwy yn awr (that translates into ‘we fancy him even more now’ just incase you’re not up to scratch on your Welsh).

5. His celebrity crush is Meryl Streep. We have so much in common.

Dakota Johnson

1. Dakota is perhaps best known for her role of Anastasia Steele in last year’s Fifty Shades of Grey but has been out and about for quite some time now. You may recognize her from 21 Jump Street. Last year she starred in Black Mass opposite Johnny Depp and this year you'll see her in How To Be Single, alongside Rebel Wilson, Alison Brie and Leslie Mann.

2. She comes from an all-star family. Her parents are Melanie Griffiths and Don Johnson while her grandmother is Tippi Hedren. Her former step-father is also Antonio Banderas. In fact, she made her film debut at age 10 opposite her mother and half-sister, Stella Banderas, in Crazy in Alabama.

3. This winter she holidayed with Kate Hudson and her mother. The trip was chronicled over a series of cute Insta-snaps.

4. She once shared a bed with Justin Timberlake. Okay, okay, it might have been for the film, The Social Network where Justin played the Napster guru Sean Parker, but it still happened!

5. Dakota was signed by IMG model agency in 2006 and has starred in campaigns for major labels including MANGO, Wish, Uniqlo and Oliver Peoples.

Brie Larson

1. Brie will be starring as Ma in this month's film adaptation of Emma Donaghue’s best-selling novel, Room. She was also seen in the comedy hit of 2015, Trainwreck opposite Amy Schumer and won numerous awards and was previously tipped for an Oscar nomination for her performance in Short Term 12.

2. Her last name is actually – brace for it – Desaulniers. She was aware that her surname may be too difficult to pronounce to chose her great-grandmother’s maiden name, Larson as her stage name. She later claimed that she chose the name due to her obsession with an American Girl doll she had as a child. 

3. She’s a habitual user of Reddit forums and her username is TonTonClub, a reference to Star Wars which she is an uber fan of. Should we expect her and John Boyega to get on like a house on fire? Most likely.

4. Larson’s first job was performing in a parody commercial on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno called Mudslide Barbie. That beats a paper round any day…

5. Larson almost became a pop star and released an album in 2005 called Finally Out of P.E.

Bel Powley

1. Bel most recently starred in the award winning, The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures. She played the role the protagonist, Minnie, an aspiring cartoonist who keeps an audio diary about her sexual awakening. After the film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival to roaring applause, Bel found herself crying on her co-star Alexander Skarsgard’s shoulder.

2. She encouraged girls to get a fake ID to see the film after it was rated 18 in the UK. Badass.

3. Even though both of her parents are in the biz, Bel has achieved her own fame without them and was picked up for the BBC children’s series MI High after a casting director came to watch a Saturday drama group she was involved in. Her parents were initially horrified with her decision to do it.

4. She played the role of Princess Margaret in the biographical drama A Royal Night Out opposite Emily Watson and Rupert Everett.

5. Bel was all set to study history and politics at the University College London when she was offered the part of Thomasina in the Broadway revival of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia.