3. Tiffany Haddish

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A stand-up comedian, Tiffany Haddish had been on the circuit for 10 years before getting her big break in Girls Trip, 2017’s highest-grossing comedy and the first movie with an all-black cast, producers, director and writers to earn more than $100 million at the box office. Throughout the film, Haddish upstages the more established Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Regina Hall with her outrageous behaviour and side-splitting one-liners. She zip-wires between two buildings, spraying urine at unsuspecting pedestrians below; she trips on absinthe; and she advises on blowjob technique armed with only a grapefruit and a banana. So it comes as a surprise that the breakout star was initially denied the chance to read for the film’s casting agents. As she admitted in her hilarious 18-minute acceptance speech for her New York Film Critics Circle award: “I tried to get an audition, and my agent is like, ‘Oh, they only want to see names.’ And I said, ‘You tell them I’ve had a name since 1979, and it’s Tiffany motherfucking Haddish.’” Since Girls Trip, the comic has continued to soar, making history by becoming the first black female stand-up comedian to host Saturday Night Live as well as signing on to three more films and publishing a New York Times-bestselling book. Oh and Meryl Streep, if you’re reading this, Haddish wants you to play her mother in Girls Trip 2. Now there’s a movie we want to see.