Which Young Actresses From 2023 Are Destined To Be The Next Meryl Streep?

Trying to predict “the next Meryl Streep” is like trying to predict the next
Beyoncé or the next Tom Hanks: a little impossible, a little unfair, and a lot
of fun. Meryl is in her own category a three-time Oscar winner with a record
21 Academy Award acting nominations and a reputation for disappearing into any
role, from a ruthless fashion editor to a conflicted nun to a singing Greek
mom in overalls.

Still, every generation has a crop of young actresses whose talent, range, and
work ethic make you wonder if we’re watching the start of that kind of
legendary career. In 2023, several young women pulled off performances so
strong that critics, fans, and awards voters all started asking the same
question: is she the one?

This isn’t about crowning a single heir to Streep’s throne she’s still very
much working, stealing scenes, and collecting more nominations, after all. It’s
about looking at which young actresses are building the kind of long-term,
prestige-meets-popcorn careers that could, one day, sit on the same shelf as
Meryl’s. Let’s break down what “the next Meryl Streep” even means, then meet
the young stars whose 2023-era work suggests they’re headed in that direction.

What Does It Mean To Be “The Next Meryl Streep”?

Before we start handing out imaginary crowns, it helps to define the job
description. Being “the next Meryl Streep” isn’t just about winning awards
(though those don’t hurt). It’s about a combination of:

• Award recognition and respect from peers. Streep is the most
  Oscar-nominated actor in history, with 21 acting nominations and three wins,
  plus a pile of Golden Globes, SAG Awards, and critics’ prizes.
• Range and versatility. She can jump from comedy to tragedy,
  prestige dramas to crowd-pleasing hits, and make each role feel like it was
  written just for her.
• Longevity. Her career hasn’t been about one “moment” it’s
  been decades of consistently interesting choices.
• Risk-taking. She doesn’t just play safe heroines; she leans into
  messy, complicated, sometimes unlikable characters.

So when we ask which young actresses from 2023 might be “the next Meryl
Streep,” we’re really asking: who is already showing awards-level talent,
broad range, smart career choices, and the kind of presence that can carry a
movie or series all by herself?

The Young Actresses Building Meryl-Level Careers

Saoirse Ronan: The Awards Magnet

If you’re making a serious list of “future Meryls,” Saoirse Ronan is pretty
much a mandatory inclusion. The Irish-American actress has already racked up
multiple Academy Award nominations including nods for Atonement,
Brooklyn, and Lady Bird all before turning 30.

What makes Ronan feel so Streep-adjacent is her quiet intensity. Like Meryl,
she can anchor a story by just listening, reacting, and letting micro-expressions
do half the work. In coming-of-age dramas, period pieces, and even offbeat
comedies, she brings a blend of intelligence and emotional transparency that
critics love.

By 2023, Ronan had already crossed that line from “rising star” to “respected
lead who automatically makes a project more interesting.” Commentators have
even directly compared her nomination pace to Streep’s, suggesting she could
eventually challenge Meryl’s record if she keeps choosing similarly rich
roles.

Florence Pugh: The Emotional Chameleon

Florence Pugh has that “I can do literally anything” energy that instantly
sets off the Meryl radar. She broke out with indie dramas and horror
(Lady Macbeth, Midsommar), then jumped straight into prestige fare
like Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, which earned her an Academy Award
nomination for Best Supporting Actress and a BAFTA nomination.

By 2023, Pugh was showing how comfortable she is in the pop-culture spotlight
too. Her performance in Don’t Worry Darling cut through the noise of
behind-the-scenes drama; she was praised for carrying the film with a layered
turn that swung from suburban Stepford calm to full-blown psychological
breakdown.

What feels very Streep-ish about Pugh is her willingness to move among tones
and genres without losing credibility. She can play a grief-stricken cult
victim, a spoiled but secretly vulnerable March sister, a Marvel anti-hero,
and a quietly furious 1950s housewife and you believe all of them. That
fearless, shape-shifting quality is exactly what kept Meryl Streep’s career
from ever feeling repetitive.

Zendaya: From Disney Kid to Prestige Powerhouse

If Meryl Streep came up in the era of prestige adult dramas, Zendaya is doing
something similar in the age of streaming and mega-franchises. She went from
Disney Channel beginnings to blockbuster roles in Marvel’s
Spider-Man films and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, then grabbed the industry’s
attention with her raw, painful turn as Rue in HBO’s Euphoria. That
performance has already earned her two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding
Lead Actress in a Drama Series, making her the youngest two-time acting winner
in Emmy history.

In 2023 and beyond, Zendaya has continued to expand her range, shifting from
high-intensity TV drama to sensual, psychologically complex film roles like
those in Challengers. She’s also become a true multi-hyphenate: producer,
style icon, and behind-the-scenes creative voice, much like Streep has used
her clout to shape the kinds of projects she leads.

Where she feels most “Meryl” is in her ability to command the camera even in
quiet moments. Zendaya doesn’t just play characters; she seems to know how
they would walk, breathe, and think, and she’s not afraid of ugly crying or
moral ambiguity along the way.

Anya Taylor-Joy: Genre-Hopping Queen

Anya Taylor-Joy has built a career on roles that could easily have gone flat
in less capable hands: a chess prodigy in a period limited series, a
mysterious final girl in horror, an offbeat heroine in a Jane Austen rom-com,
a culinary victim in a dark satire. Instead, she turns all of them into
sharply drawn, weirdly compelling people.

Her turn in The Queen’s Gambit was a milestone: she won a Golden Globe and
a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress in a Limited Series, solidifying
her status as an awards-caliber performer, not just an aesthetically striking
one.

Streep has always been excellent at bringing specificity to heightened
worlds think The Devil Wears Prada or Death Becomes Her. Taylor-Joy
does something similar with heightened genre material, filling even stylized
scripts with very human vulnerabilities and edges. As she takes on more big
swings in film, it’s easy to imagine her Oscar tally growing over time.

Jenna Ortega: Gen-Z’s Dark-Horse Meryl Candidate

On paper, Jenna Ortega looks like a teen horror and dark-comedy specialist.
She’s done Scream movies, high-school series, and Tim Burton’s
Netflix hit Wednesday. But look a little closer and you see the kind of
control and charisma that can anchor an entire franchise.

Wednesday became one of Netflix’s most-watched shows ever, pulling in
over a billion hours of viewing in its first month. Ortega’s performance in
the title role was singled out by critics for being intense, offbeat, and
surprisingly layered, and she earned nominations for a Golden Globe, a SAG
Award, and an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series making
her the second-youngest nominee ever in that category.

That kind of early recognition is very Meryl-coded: a young actress using a
pop-culture phenomenon as a showcase for real, nuanced acting. If Ortega keeps
balancing mainstream hits with weirder, more challenging roles, she could
easily pivot into the kind of awards-heavy career we usually associate with
older generations.

Bella Ramsey: Prestige Drama’s New Secret Weapon

Bella Ramsey had already stolen scenes on Game of Thrones, but 2023 turned
them into a full-blown leading star thanks to HBO’s The Last of Us. As Ellie,
Ramsey brought a mix of vulnerability, anger, gallows humor, and trauma that
made the show as emotionally brutal as it was visually tense.

That performance earned Ramsey nominations and honors from major awards
bodies, including Critics Choice and MTV Movie & TV Awards recognition and
inclusion in BAFTA’s 2023 Breakthrough talent cohort.

Ramsey’s style is less showy than some of their peers, but that’s exactly
what makes the Streep comparison interesting. Like Meryl at her quietest,
Bella knows when to underplay a moment and when to let the emotion crack
through. In prestige TV and film, that kind of control is gold.

Mikey Madison: The Surprise Oscar Winner

Every era needs a “where did she come from?” talent the performer who seems
to leap from supporting roles into a major awards moment overnight. For the
mid-2020s, that’s Mikey Madison.

After turns in projects like Better Things, Once Upon a Time in
Hollywood, and Scream, Madison exploded into the spotlight with
Anora, an indie-comedy-drama about a Brooklyn sex worker who impulsively
marries a Russian oligarch’s son. In 2025 she won the Oscar for Best Actress
for the role, becoming one of the youngest winners in the category’s history
and sweeping up several critics’ prizes and other awards along the way.

Madison’s work in Anora is exactly the sort of bold, risk-heavy performance
that defines a career: it’s physically demanding, morally messy, and
emotionally exposed. It feels like the kind of early, daring role Meryl might
have taken in the 1980s the kind that shows you there’s much more range
coming.

Other Names in the “Future Meryl” Conversation

Of course, any list like this is going to leave out deserving contenders. Fan
polls and think pieces often mention actresses like Emma Stone, Margot Robbie,
Carey Mulligan, and Brie Larson all of whom already have Oscars or multiple
nominations and are still relatively young in “lifelong career” terms.

But if we narrow the lens specifically to the young actresses who were
lighting up screens and awards chatter in and around 2023, the group above
feels like the best blend of:

• Proven acting chops
• Evidence of range across genres
• Recognition from major awards bodies
• That intangible “I’d watch her read a phone book” charisma

Will There Ever Really Be Another Meryl Streep?

The honest answer: probably not and that’s okay. Meryl Streep became Meryl
Streep partly because of timing. She rose through the industry at a moment
when mid-budget adult dramas still dominated, when studios were willing to
fund nuanced character work and when awards shows had massive cultural pull.

Today’s young actresses are navigating a wildly different landscape:
franchises, streaming wars, global box office pressures, and constant online
commentary. In many ways, they have to work harder to carve out space for
complicated, character-driven stories between superhero movies and endless IP
revivals.

So instead of hunting for “the next Meryl,” it might be more accurate and
definitely more fun to imagine a future where we say things like:
“She’s the next Zendaya,” “the next Florence Pugh,” or “the next Mikey
Madison.” That’s the real legacy of someone like Streep: she sets the bar so
high that the only way to meet it is to become your own version of legendary.

What It Feels Like Watching the “Next Meryls” in Real Time

One of the coolest parts of following film and TV in the 2020s is realizing
that we’re not just watching stories we’re watching long careers being
built, one project at a time. If you’re a movie nerd, awards junkie, or
casual fan who just “has a feeling” about certain actors, you’re probably
already having little Meryl-style déjà vu moments.

That “I’m Witnessing Something Big” Feeling

Maybe you felt it the first time you saw Saoirse Ronan command the screen in
Brooklyn, quietly anchoring an entire film with a handful of looks and
a few devastating line readings. Or the moment Florence Pugh’s character
finally breaks in Midsommar, and you realize you’re watching someone who
can turn raw panic into art.

For a lot of viewers, that feeling kicked in with Zendaya’s Rue in
Euphoria a character who could’ve just been another teen drama stereotype
but instead became a brutally honest portrait of addiction, grief, and
self-sabotage. Her Emmy wins didn’t just feel like trophies; they felt like
confirmation of what audiences were already seeing night after night.

Streaming, Fandom, and the New Path to Legend Status

The path to Meryl-level respect used to be fairly linear: theater training,
supporting roles in prestige dramas, a big Oscar-friendly breakout, then a
steady climb through “serious” filmography. That path still exists you can
see pieces of it in Florence Pugh and Saoirse Ronan’s careers but streaming
and social media have scrambled the order.

Jenna Ortega and Bella Ramsey are great examples. Both became household names
thanks to streaming series with huge fandoms: Wednesday and
The Last of Us. Their first truly global “star” moments came not on a movie
screen, but on binge-watch weekends, TikTok edits, and fan art threads. Yet
the awards recognition that followed shows the industry is paying attention
to their craft, not just their follower counts.

That means the “next Meryl Streep” might not come from the traditional
pipeline of stage-to-independent-film-to-Oscars. She might come from genre TV
or horror or a streaming limited series that happens to break through and
show the full range of what she can do.

Why It Matters To Spot Talent Early

Keeping an eye on these young actresses isn’t just a fun fandom exercise it
actually matters for the kinds of stories we get in the future. When audiences
show up for nuanced, character-driven performances (whether in a theater or on
a couch), it sends a clear message to studios and streamers: we want more of
this.

Supporting someone like Mikey Madison in a daring indie like Anora, or
championing Bella Ramsey’s emotionally brutal work in The Last of Us,
helps prove that complicated female (and non-binary) characters aren’t a niche
interest; they’re the heart of modern storytelling. The more we reward that,
the more likely it is that these actors will keep getting the kind of meaty
roles that make careers legendary.

So, Who’s Your “Next Meryl”?

At the end of the day, choosing which young actress from 2023 feels “destined”
to be the next Meryl Streep is a deeply personal call. Maybe you gravitate to
the raw, indie intensity of Florence Pugh. Maybe you can’t look away from
Zendaya’s emotional vulnerability, Jenna Ortega’s deadpan magnetism, Bella
Ramsey’s grounded realism, or Mikey Madison’s fearless chaos.

The fun part is that we don’t have to pick just one. Meryl Streep didn’t
become Meryl overnight it took decades of saying yes to interesting scripts,
no to bad ones, and always bringing 110% to whatever she did. Right now, a
whole generation of actresses is quietly doing the same thing in their own
way. We’re just lucky enough to be watching the first few chapters.

So keep your Letterboxd logs updated, your awards predictions chaotic, and
your group chats ready. In 20 years, when people argue about “who was the
greatest actress of the 2020s,” you’ll get to say, “I was there when it
started.”