Ellie Kemper

Ellie Kemper's first screen credits arrive in 2010 and point in two directions at once: a brisk record-label executive in Get Him to the Greek, and a small, subdued part in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere. Comedy won. She had joined The Office in 2009 as Erin Hannon, arriving long after that cast had settled and with no obvious room made for her, and by the time Bridesmaids opened in 2011 she was the sweet newlywed at the centre of that film's best set piece.

Her instrument is a very particular brightness. The voice climbs, the eyes stay wide, and the joke lives in the gap between the cheerfulness she is producing and whatever is actually happening in the room. Erin was written sunny and Kemper played her sunny in the way people are sunny when the alternative is unbearable. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which ran from 2015 to 2019, took that quality and built a whole series on it instead of using it as a running gag in someone else's.

Film has used her less well. She is often the third friend, the wife, the reaction shot, or one voice in an animated ensemble: Katie in the Secret Life of Pets films, Phyllis in The Lego Batman Movie, Smurfblossom in Smurfs: The Lost Village. Laggies and Somewhere are the exceptions, small films that let her stop performing for a minute. She published a book of essays, My Squirrel Days, in 2018.