50. Leighton Meester
Gossip Girl continues to be the gift that keeps on giving, as Leighton Meester joins Blake Lively and Michelle Trachtenburg on our list. Leighton plays Blair, one of the various shallow, self-obsessed, backstabbing, and elitist main characters of the ensemble cast. It's worth noting that Leighton has been quoted as saying that she identifies with Blair "on every level, in one way or another." Well, hey, at least she has the self-awareness to know they're both totally hot.
By the by, "Leighton Meester" really sounds like it ought to be some sort of mutual-funds investing group rather than a blazing hottie, but the world doesn't always give you exactly what you'd expect.
49. Evan Rachel Wood
Evan Rachel Wood has quickly made a reputation for playing characters who do naughty (or at least highly titillating) things. First off, her 15 year old character got herself in a high-school lesbian relationship with Mischa Barton on Once and Again (yes, it certainly was nice that the writers of Once and Again were working hard to portray gay relationships in a positive light - must have just been a coincidence that the show's ratings were tanking when the storyline was conceived and the young lesbians in question were super hot.)
Then Wood went on to play beguiling jailbait against Ed Norton in 2006's Down In The Valley . And these days, she's busting through that fourth wall by not only shacking up with Marilyn Manson, but also ending his seven-year marriage to Dita Von Tease by doing so.
48. Emmy RossumYou may not be too familiar with hottie Emmy Rossum yet, unless you, like us, are a devotee of cheesy disaster flicks and can't get enough of watching The Day After Tomorrow - she played Jake Gyllenhaal's love interest, although she didn't have much to do except sit around and wait to get rescued for the majority of the second half of the movie. She was also in Phantom of the Opera, but don't front like you actually saw that.
However, though you may not know her now, she's set to take over Nerd Nation for certain next year, when she stars in a live-action adaptation of Dragon Ball (!) directed by James Wong of X-Files fame (!!) and featuring Chow Yun-Fat and ex-Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson (!!!) Time to get in on the ground floor of the Emmy Rossum boomlet, kids.
47. Blake LivelyBlake's the first of many ladies from Gossip Girl on this list, because Gossip Girl is like a starlet natural preserve or something. In fact, originally, we pitched this article as just "50 Hottest Women on Gossip Girl," but our editor felt it was too narrowly focused, and we had to go and pad it out with young starlets who were not on Gossip Girl.
To be fair, Ms. Lively originally hit the scene as part of the cast of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, in which she was one of four girls who shared a magical pair of pants that made special things happen to them. In Blake's character's case, the magical pants cause her to lose her virginity to some dreamy coach at soccer camp.
46. Kristin CavallariIn our studies of Kristin Cavallari, we had to turn to some of our research assistants (read: our younger sisters), because they had actually watched Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, the (kinda) reality show that originally launched Kristen to fame. From what we were able to understand, there was some dramatic love triangle featuring her and LC and Stephen, and either Stephen was a total jerkface or LC was a scheming rhymes-with-witch or Kristin was not a true friend or ... well, frankly, we gave up trying to follow the details because we already knew that we were only going to have positive feelings towards Ms. Cavallari as soon as we saw that first picture of her.
45. JoJo LevesqueTechnically, singer JoJo is more of a star of the stage than of the screen, but if somebody's going to let Lindsay Lohan release not one but TWO albums, who are we to deny JoJo a few shots as an actress? Her few ventures onto the screen have been the very definition of pedestrian - she was one of two young friends who discovered and befriended a mermaid in the deservedly under-seen movie Aquamarine, and played Robin Williams' kid in the clunky Williams vehicle RV (clunky vehicle! Get it? Get it?)
Er, well, in any case, JoJo is most likely not going to make her mark for her acting chops, but as the kid singer develops into a young adult we're looking forward to the inevitable, time-tested image-changing single. Everyone else is doing it, JoJo ... you don't want to be left out, do you?
44. Kaley CuocoWe had a tough time putting Kaley Cuoco on this list, because we kind of still associate her indirectly with John Ritter's death - she was playing one of the two daughters in 8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter when he unexpectedly died on set - and while there are far fewer rules for writing celebrity snark, one of them is that you're a straight-up assh*le if you make fun of John Ritter.
Fortunately, there are some much more pleasant Kaley Cuoco associations, such as her ridiculous role on the ridiculous old WB series Charmed - in which she was perfectly unbelievable but a whole lot of fun to watch as some sort of incredibly powerful time-traveling, reality-altering sorceress. Currently she's on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, playing a dim-witted blond bombshell in her early 20s ... as opposed to the dim-witted blond bombshell she played on ABC's 8 Simple Rules. Everybody say a prayer for co-stars Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons.
43. Brittany SnowBrittany Snow had her first starring role in April's Prom Night, which was an absolutely wretched dog of a slasher flick in which poor Brittany spent essentially the entire movie chased by an obsessed teacher who was killing her all friends. As we recall from our hazy memories, there was absolutely nothing memorable about the movie from start to finish, but somehow it ended up being the #1 movie for the weekend.
Given these facts, we here at UGO are theorizing that it is perhaps possible that all a slasher flick needs to make a truckload of money is a gorgeous blond chick running around and screaming a lot. Don't tell anybody our conclusions - we don't want Hollywood to steal our idea.
42. Lauren StormWe first became aware of Lauren Storm when she played Taylor on the Discovery Kids show Flight 29 Down, which was essentially Lost for kids. Of course, being for kids, they had to take out all the suspense, mystery, sex and complicated storylines, so it's a good thing they still had a knockout lead in Lauren Storm, cause what else was left?
Maybe it's just her name and looks, but we're predicting that Lauren eventually finds herself in some superhero flick - not that that's so unlikely these days; you can't throw a starlet 20 feet without hitting a superhero movie - and as long as her superpowers have something to do with her being in a tight suit, consider our tickets already purchased.
41. Ashley OlsenMary-Kate and Ashley Olsen had to grow up to be amazingly, blindingly, scorchingly hot just to make up for the years upon years of sickening saccharine cuteness they foisted on us when they played Michelle Tanner back in the day on Full House. Here's to them to holding up their end of the bargain! An entire generation grew up wanting to slap the bejesus out of those little brats, and then something odd happened, and they sprouted into young ladies that inspired many a fantasy of a similar yet slightly different type of energetic physical interaction.
The Olsens have been trying to establish themselves as two distinct media personalities since they became young adults, but it can still be difficult for those unschooled in Olsen lore to remember which one is which. Cliffs notes version: Ashley is the hot one, Mary-Kate is the other hot one.
40. Amanda BynesIs Amanda Bynes cuter than she is pretty? Or is she prettier than she is hot? Or is she hotter than she is sexy? Philosophers can debate the correct terminology for girls like Bynes in the wee hours of the morning (and then the philosophers will become drunk and start using words like "bangin'" and "fly," which are unbecoming of philosophers yet still technically accurate.)
Bynes, as a veteran of multiple Nickelodeon sketch comedy shows, also continues to fuel the debate over whether Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel is a better incubator for scorching starlets. We'll be running a statistical analysis throughout our list here - half-points for guest starring or being in movies, full points for recurring roles.
Fun Amanda Bynes fact: Amanda's dad Rick had a dual career as a dentist and a stand-up comic. We'd love to see the psychological profile of that twisted monster.
39. Tina MajorinoPart of the danger that one accepts when taking on a difficult project like making a list of 50 really hot young chicks is that your research is certain to lead you to some shocking revelations. Like, you likely already knew that Tina Majorino had a role as the painfully adorable computer geek Mac on Veronica Mars, and you probably saw her turn in Napoleon Dynamite, but did you know that back when was she was 10 years old she also played that dirty, tattered child that Kevin Costner rescues in Waterworld? That's just a little unsettling and weird.
We celebrate and support Tina's move from Orphan of the Apocalypse genre, and look forward to her expanding her operations in the growing and lucrative Hot Dork field.
38. Katie LeungThe lovely Miss Leung, like most of the Harry Potter series cast, had no significant acting experience before showing up on the big screen as Cho Chang, Harry's first love interest. (A lesser freelance writer might take this opportunity to make a cheap joke about Harry Potter's wand here, but you're in the hands of a master, so no such joke will be employed in a sober discussion of Katie Leung's remarkable physical attributes.)
While Katie isn't a traditional hottie in the bleached-blond sense, that's exactly the kind of thing that gets her one of the coveted spaces on this highly influential list - her adorable shyness in interviews (it really is a nice change of pace from the forced gregariousness of most Hollywood interviews) and her peculiar combination of Chinese looks with Scottish accent that make her one of the few starlets you can't possible mistake for somebody similar. And let's not beat around the bush - the Hogwarts uniform doesn't hurt, either.
37. Jennifer FreemanWe have had a thing for the sumptuous Jennifer Freeman ever since her breakout role in You Got Served, partially from her body-rocking dance moves and partially because we still, years and years after the phrase died, find it a terribly amusing insult (and still hold out hope that there will be a second sequel where World of Warcraft fanatics will challenge each other to dance-offs: You Got Pwned.)
But before her turn as the dancing queen Lila, it turns out that she appeared on - you guessed it - had not one but TWO roles on Disney Channel shows - Lizzie McGuire and Even Stevens. Her characters were only one-shot deals, though, so we can only give Disney half-credit for this one, bringing the running total to Nick 1, Disney 0.5.
36. Tania RaymondeIn these days of DVD box sets and digital downloads, it's tough to determine what qualifies as a TV spoiler these days, so we'll tread carefully: it appears unlikely that Tania Raymonde's character is going to be seen again on Lost, and that is an awfully big shame, as this ravishing beauty of French descent managed to stand out in a show that has a whole hell of a lot more happening in it than just a series of hot chicks. We have a lot of respect for the Lost writers, but we're not sure even they can write her out of that corner.
Fear not, though, as she's apparently headed to a bigger screen to star along with Kristin Cavallari
35. Maggie GraceGiving Hilary Duff and Michelle Trachtenberg a serious run for their money in the Hottest Girl Playing the Most Insufferable Character sweepstakes is Maggie Grace, better known as Shannon Rutherford on Lost. One of the most central mysteries of Lost, as far as we're concerned, is whether Ana Lucia "accidentally" shot Shannon because she was unbearable to deal with or because Ana was totally jealous of Shannon's hotness (and when you're Michelle Rodriguez, somebody else has got to be pretty damned hot to make you jealous.)
Miss Grace also had a starring role in The Jane Austen Book Club, a 2007 drama about a Jane Austen book club that holds the distinction of being the only movie never to be seen by a single heterosexual male.
34. Chelsea StraubIt's often been said that playing a villain is a much better role for an actor than playing a protagonist, as it's easier to give a bad guy layers (as opposed to the good guys, who can only show so many flaws before the audience stops rooting for them.) So it's quite shocking that Chelsea Straub hasn't already become a household name - what possible part could be richer in emotional complexity, more explorative of the depths of the human psyche, than antagonist Meredith Baxter Dimly in Bratz: The Movie?
Perhaps frustrated with the world's inability to acknowledge that tour de force, Straub next went to the only other stage great enough to hold her talents - a Disney Channel original movie called Minutemen - and yet still her name fails to command the respect it has earned, although Disney gets another half-point in the competition with Nickelodeon, tying it up at 1. Honestly, we don't know how Chelsea Straub can keep her radiant smile, surrounded as she is by a nation that cannot recognize her brilliance.
33. Aimee TeegardenOkay, so now we know where all the vowels in Lyndsy Fonseca's first name went: Aimee Teegarden swiped them.
Teegarden plays the daughter of the football coach on Friday Night Lights, and therefore was thematically obligated to have a romance storyline with the quarterback; however, the writers wised up and gave her some more interesting things (and characters, ahem) to do. We've always been impressed that Aimee manages to give this potentially one-note rebellious-daughter character some depth, and we're also quite happy that the rebellious daughter keeps ending up in situations that require her to be seductive on screen.
And for those still keeping score at home: Nickelodeon and Disney both get a half-point for this one, as Aimee appeared on Nick's Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide and on Disney's Hannah Montana. Disney 1.5, Nick 1.5 - it's a barnburner!
32. Evanna LynchThe supercute Evanna Lynch, who was added to the Harry Potter cast as Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, has a pretty special look to her. In fact, we can quantify exactly how special that look is - she beat out 15,000 other potential Lovegoods in the casting call. It's not particularly surprising, either, as there's just something immediately charming about Lynch's style - of course, it probably helps that we Americans are predisposed to find anybody with a Irish accent to be immediately charming, it's just the way we're programmed. She'll be back in 2008 for the next installment of the Potter juggernaut, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and we are greatly looking forward to seeing her pupate from the cute stage to the hot stage. (Ok, so 'pupate' isn't a very sexy word. Sue us.)
Also, it bears noting that Evanna Lynch currently attends an all-girls Catholic school in Ireland. We're just sayin'.
31. Lyndsy FonsecaLyndsy, we love you and we respect your desire to display your individuality, but seriously, are vowels THAT bad? Crimes against grammar aside, we certainly did enjoy watching Lyndsy's Dylan Mayfair on the last season of Desperate Housewives, although she's out for the next year as a casualty of the series jumping forward in time at the end of the season (who ever knew that Desperate Housewives writers were watching Battlestar Galatica for plot ideas?)
Also, we were really crushed when Lyndsy ended up not reprising her role on Heroes, which was allegedly supposed to be a recurring role as a lesbian cheerleader. We were awfully curious to see how that storyline was going to develop, cause lesbians are a lot like like guns when it comes to the rules of drama: you can't introduce one in the first act and not have it go off during the third.
30. Ellen PageDid you know that Ellen Page's full name is actually "Indie Darling Ellen Page?" It's true. Indie Darling Ellen Page first popped on the scene in the severely disturbing movie Hard Candy (if you don't know what that one's about, let's just say that getting into it will totally destroy the light-hearted mood of this list, so research that on your own time) and then, most recently, Indie Darling Ellen Page won the hearts of critics and hipsters (and baffled pro-lifers) with her turn in Juno. Next year, Indie Darling Ellen Page will be starring in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, a roller derby movie called Whip It.
Indie Darling Ellen Page doesn't have the most traditional of looks - after all, her name isn't Mainstream Queen Ellen Page - but in all her roles thus far she's displayed a sharp, impudent sense of humor that we find just challenging enough to be irresistible. And all actresses are really just amalgamations of the characters they've played, so Indie Darling Ellen Page is a sociopathic, castrating rollergirl who eschews birth control. We're fascinated by the multitudes that Indie Darling Ellen Page contains.
29. Ashley JohnsonYet another good example of the shocking things you discover when you get waist-deep in starlet research. We vaguely remembered Ashley Johnson from her short stint on the blink-and-you-missed-it Courtney Cox drama Dirt on FX, and when we were tasked with coming up with a list of hot young things, we went to go find what else she had done and found to our horror that she was Kirk Cameron's little sister on Growing Pains! That's just disturbing.
Fortunately, Ashley's blond goldilocks make her much more of a fetching lass these days. We still shudder to think what fundamentalist Kirk Cameron would make of the things we'd be willing to do to lil' Chrissy Seaver.
28. Michelle TrachtenbergAs we've mentioned before, there are some recurring themes in this list of the young and desirable, and Michelle hits the trifecta - not only is she an alum of Nickelodeon Hottie Academy (she starred in the Adventures of Pete and Pete), and not only did she star in a Disney movie (Ice Princess), she's also currently starring on Gossip Girl! Unfortunately, with the exception of her run as Dawn on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the rest of Michelle's resume isn't much to be proud of, as she played Penny in Inspector Gadget and played something or other in Euro Trip (the role, obviously was as forgettable as the movie.)
It seems that Michelle is working on carving out a niche for herself by playing extremely hot yet extremely annoying characters. As long as pictures don't talk and televisions can be muted, there will always be a place in our hearts for Michelle Trachtenburg.
27. Ashlee SimpsonUsually, when a younger sister follows an older one into the media spotlight, the younger seems like a cut-rate knockoff of the original (Jamie-Lynn Spears? Please. Ali Lohan? Look out.) This is not the case with the young Ms. Ashlee Simpson, who is no less a formulaic media creation than her equally moderately talented older sister, but is much more fun to look at and listen to than the painfully imperious Jessica Simpson.
All you really need to know about the difference between Ashlee and Jessica is that Jessica has been seriously tied to Nick Lachey (lame), John Mayer (lamer) and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo (let's not even get into that) while Ashlee is currently married to Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz. Say what you will about Fall Out Boy, but do Nick Lahey and John Mayer have any songs in Rock Band? Right. Advantage: Ashlee.
26. Mischa BartonMemo to the genius writers of The O.C. - maybe it's not such a hot idea to kill off your hottest character. After Mischa Barton's Marissa Cooper made a premature farm purchase at the end of The O.C.s' third season, the popularity of the show quickly followed her to the grave.
Far more sad than the loss of Barton's character, though, is the fact that there haven't been too many opportunities for Mischa-sighting on the tube since she left The O.C., and her elegant beauty leaves a gaping void in the ogling universe. Let's hope that void will be filled later this year, when she plays "a dangerous woman who decides to take her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend hostage" in the upcoming horror flick Homecoming. We're not really certain why somebody with the looks of Mischa Barton would have to stoop to such underhanded methods to keep her ex-boyfriend's attention, but fortunately we're well versed in the skill of suspending our disbelief.
25. America FerreraA beautiful immigrant named America who stars on a show called Ugly Betty - the contradictions are rife in this one. We've actually always found it slightly odd that there's no interest group for the rights of ugly people protesting the writers of Ugly Betty for casting a babe in the title role. Would not an ugly person have more insight into the trials and tribulations of the ugly? Is America Ferrera not trafficking in a kind of blackface? Are the lessons that Ugly Betty has to teach us not undercut by the fact that America Ferrera would have almost certainly not gotten the role if she wasn't attractive in the first place?
Ah, who are we kidding, really? Let us just sit back and enjoy the winsome smile of an out-of-character America Ferrara, and leave the philosophizing to ... well, to the ugly people.
24. Emma WatsonMaybe this'll be the kind of thing we regret having written in future years, but Emma Watson doesn't seem like her child-star status will cause her to wreck expensive cars, snort up a South American country's entire supply of cocaine or remove all her bodily hair in a protest against fame. She might not even join Kabbalah.
Since she appeared on the scene as Hermione Granger at the age of nine, Emma's continually come across as one of the most easily self-confident and assured kid actors we've seen in the last few years. Her recent turn in last year's totally boring BBC drama Ballet Shoes (ok, ok - we didn't see it, but can the phrase "BBC drama Ballet Shoes'" portend anything other than something totally boring?) was critically acclaimed, and makes us confident that ten years from now, she'll totally be able to have a steady, critically acclaimed career in boring film roles that require a British accent.
Oh - and she's 18 as of this April, so it's *finally* ok to mention she's as cute as a button. It's been tough.
23. Kristen StewartNow here's a nice change of pace - a total hottie of tender years who can really act. In her younger years, Stewart first made a mark in Panic Room playing against Jodie Foster (who, of course, practically wrote the book on being excellent eye candy while also having acting chops - just ask Mark David Chapman.) Later on she was nominated for a Young Artist Award in the rather weird thriller Undertow.
The plot summary for her next project, Twilight, doesn't particularly seem like it would be a vehicle built to win the love of critics - she's set to play a young mortal who falls in love with a vampire, which apparently causes some dramatic complications - but we're happy to hear about it, since vampire flicks seem to generally include some hot seduction scenes, and we eagerly look forward to Stewart aiming her prodigious skills at those.
22. Vanessa HudgensVanessa Hudgens taught us all a very important lesson in image management in late 2007. Previously, it was believed that the only way for a celebrity to guarantee themselves a popularity boomlet was to appear in a sex tape and get it leaked on the Internet. But Hudgens, that canny operator from High School Musical, may have realized that given the combination of her tender age and her Disney association, all she had to do was take one amateurish nude shot of herself, get that on the Internet, and voila, instant popularity-increasing mini-scandal!
Not that we're saying that Ms. Hudgens actually got this leaked on purpose - because we've been advised that saying so might be legally actionable - but we are saying that if she DID do that, it was a pretty shrewd move, and totally kicked the butt of Jamie Lynn's Spears pregnancy scandal in the benefit-to-detriment department. We hear babies are a lot of work.
We're awarding Nick a half point for Hudgens' work on Drake & Josh, and giving Disney a full point for the billions of High School Musicals that Hudgens has and will appear in before that money train goes off the rails - tying us up again at 3 points each.
21. Lindsay LohanLindsay seems to have moderately dialed back the persistent train-wreck of her personal life - as far as we could tell from our exhaustive research, she has not wrecked a car, gone to rehab or been arrested in 2008. Great job, Lindsay! This makes it all the easier for us to love you for your recent re-creation of Marilyn Monroe's final photo shoot without having that creeping (and creepy) fear that you were going to follow her self-destructive path all the way down to the bitter end.
The jury is still out on whether or not Lindsay's going to stay relatively stable, whether she's eventually going to burn all the way out or whether she'll find the Courtney Love (un)happy medium as her career progresses, but we're just pleased that it looks like she's not actually going to die anytime soon. Dying is totally not hot.
A full point for Disney, based on Lohan's performances in The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, puts the Mouse back in the lead, 4 to 3! This is very exciting!
20. Ava SantanaAva doesn't have too many credits to her name just yet, but we love the genuinely innocent look to her in her headshots - and not that fake-innocent, you'd-NEVER-guess-I'm-secretly-naughty expression that's been popular since around the time of the invention of the camera (and, frankly, probably long before then ... maybe going back to the time that guilt was invented.) That being said, we can't help but notice that when she does show up on screen, the chances are fairly good that she'll be dancing in a strip club (which is where she was earlier this year on Friday Night Lights, and also in little-seen 2006 horror flick The Return.)
We're hoping that Ava manages to get somewhat meatier roles in the near future, but a quick look at her role in her next project College is not particularly promising: she's credited as "Lesbian Girl #1." We have faith, though, that she'll steal the show from Lesbian Girls #2, #3 and #4.
19. Lauren ConradHard as it may be to believe these days, there was a time before reality shows, and even after reality shows became part of our shared reality, most of them either focused on the personal lives of those who were already actually famous (Anna Nicole Smith, Ozzy Osbourne) or simply detailed a relatively short period in the lives of non-famous people (The Real World, Survivor), after which they'd go on to return to their regular lives.
It's somewhat sobering, then, to step back and look at the life of Lauren Conrad, who was plucked from complete obscurity to become a star on MTV's Laguna Beach "reality" show in 2004, lasted two seasons there, and then got her very own faux-reality in The Hills, which is entering its fourth season. LC is only 22 years old, so she's now spent a fifth of her life with her existence half-scripted and cameras documenting her every move, making her a prime candidate for a future mental breakdown. Don't worry, LC, we'll be there to pick up the pieces when you break. But, like, in a sweet loving way, you know.
18. Brooke HoganThis one was a tough call to include. On the one hand, Brooke Hogan has all the attributes you need for inclusion on this list (hot? check. young? check? on film or tv? check) but on the other hand, this creature sprang from the loins of the Hulkster, and something about Hulk just makes us think that he'd be the kind of guy to be protective of his sweet little thing.
Can you imagine the mood-destroying worries of all of Brooke's teenage boyfriends, trying to cop a feel in the parked car in the driveway but living in fear that Hogan was going to rip off the car door, Hulk out, do that finger-waving thing and start demanding to know what you were going to do, brother, when the Electra complex ran wild on you? Sheesh, it's almost enough to make a man turn his affections to Rumer Willis. Almost.
17. Hilary DuffDisney pads its lead in the homestretch, 5-3, on the strength of their early-decade flagship hottie Lizzie McGuire. We feel the need here to point out again that this list is strictly concerned with the critical values of age and hotness, because as far as we can tell, every project that Duff has been involved with has ranged from barely tolerable to atrocious. We had the misfortune of actually seeing Duff's A Cinderella Story in theaters when it came out, and it truly made us pine for the comparatively razor-sharp wit and compelling character development of Agent Cody Banks.
We don't want to hog all the Hilary-bashing for ourselves, so let's quote Wikipedia quoting the Las Vegas Weekly's Josh Bell critiquing Duff's film Raise Your Voice: "Effortlessly combining Duff's bad acting and bad singing with bad writing and bad direction, Raise Your Voice is an insulting waste of time that begs to be silenced." Give us a call, Josh - we should hang out sometime.
16. Sarah WrightYou'd think a gig like researching attractive young women on the Internet would be easy, but sometimes it takes the skills of a hardboiled investigator. Like, for example, it turns out that Sarah Wright is often credited as Sarah Mason, but there was little explanation as to why this was. Further investigation revealed that there is a quite popular, rather outgoing and very flexible British adult film star also named Sarah Wright, and it's quite possible that our American Sarah became tired of being mistaken for the other. Our Sarah had her first major role in the traditional, low-key family drama 7th Heaven, whose fans most likely had minor freakouts when looking for Sarah Wright fanpages.
Just to confuse matters a little further, Sarah's next role is in the upcoming movie The House Bunny, which is about a Playboy Bunny who - through a series of events surely best categorized as "zany" - must live in a sorority house and teach the girls about love and life. We're certain that we can all learn important lessons from what The House Bunny has to teach us.
15. Julianne HoughLet us be frank, here. We're going to make an assumption that if you have gotten this far into a list of 50 hot young women, then you're probably male. And that being the case, you probably haven't any clue who Julianne Hough is, because Julianne Hough became famous by being one of the professional dancers on Dancing With The Stars, and the chances of your having seen any of Dancing With the Stars is pretty damn low, because, c'mon now.
However, as you can see from the picture above, there is most definitely some appeal to the show, and it's called "Julianne Hough." Tragically, Ms. Hough is a conservative good girl from Utah - she's been quoted as supporting some cultish belief known as "abstinence until marriage" - and so it's unlikely we'll ever get any TMZ-worthy antics from her ... but we're willing to wait and see with her.
14. Mary-Kate OlsenPerhaps it seems like cheating to place one Olsen way down in the forties while placing another in the top twenty, but we've got some reasoning here. For whatever reason, it seems that Mary-Kate has done a better job at securing roles for herself. Currently, in one of the most inspired casting choices of all time, she's playing a born-again Christian drug dealer in Showtime's Weeds, and later on this summer word has it that she plays a drug dealer who gets it on with Ben Kingsley - you know, f'n Ghandi - in a movie called The Wackness.
We're not here to say drug dealing is hot or anything, but since Mary-Kate actually has some post-Twins credits to her name, we've decided that those roles are definitely enough to give Mary-Kate a 20-slot advantage over her square sister. You're on notice, Ashley - get your agent on the ball!
13. Ashley TisdaleAnd ... Disney rears its sexy, sexy head once more, opening up a commanding 6-3 lead over Nick. We don't think that we were quite the target audience for Disney's High School Musical series, and yet when it comes on it's damned hard to not keep watching it for Tisdale's queen bitch Sharpay Evans, an entertainingly cruel shrew in the great tradition of Heathers' Heather Chandler and Mean Girls' Regina George.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that Tisdale has got a traffic-stopping, pulse-quickening, pants-straightening look to her that makes us actually look forward to High School Musical 3: Senior Year (already in production), High School Musical 4 (announced, but not in production yet) and High School Musical 5: Freshman Year College Musical
12. Emily Van CampWe've never really understood why Americans seem to find it so endlessly amusing to make fun of Canada. We presume it has something to do with a weird big-brother little-brother relationship - you know, the same kind of dynamic that leads to wet willies and atomic wedgies - and just like actual little brothers, Canada often seems way too content to just sit there and take it.
Not only do they just sit there and take it, though, they clearly still want our love, so they try to win us over by sending down lovely exports like Ms. Emily Van Camp, who has consistently exuded sweetness in dramas Everwood and Brothers and Sisters. Yeah, they have their missteps, but we'll be happy to take 20 Bryan Adamses as long as we get an Emily Van Camp every now and again.
Ok, ok. Maybe 10 Bryan Adamses.
11. Emma RobertsSo we've got a soft spot for girl detectives, and when Emma Roberts portrayed Nancy Drew in the film of the same name last year, we were totally willing to overlook the fact that Nancy Drew was, like, a tremendously lame movie. Like Miley Cyrus and Emily Browning, Emma Roberts is poised on the precipice of either becoming a very productive, well-balanced member of the young-starlet elite, or she's about to go all 2007 Lohan on us.
The luminous young Roberts has been quite blessed in managing to get a lot of the genetic appeal of auntie Julia Roberts (as opposed to daddy Eric Roberts - whew!) And, of course, we would be remiss if we did not mention that she was on Nickelodeon too (on Unfabulous.) Current score: Disney 6, Nickelodeon 4. Can Nick close the gap?
10. Mila KunisChances are that you are very familiar with the very gorgeous Ms. Kunis from her long-running role on That 70s Show as the very gorgeous Jackie, but what you may not be aware of is that Kunis still plays a main character on a currently running sitcom - she provides the voice of Meg on Family Guy. Yes, that Meg, the unattractive, dumpy, continually-put-upon, borderline personality Meg. We've never considered voice acting to be even mildly comparable to acting in front of a camera or on a stage, but this kind of makes of rethink our position.
Seriously, look at that picture and tell us you can imagine somebody with those looks convincingly voicing a character like Meg! Kunis deserves an Oscar or a Grammy or a Tony or whatever the hell it is they give to hot voice actors these days.
9. Mackenzie RosmanPulling together a couple of different thematic threads on our list is Mackenzie Rosman. Like the Olsens - grew up before our eyes on a family show (in Rosman's case, her character went from starting elementary school to completing high school over the course of the run of 7th Heaven.) Like Vanessa Hudgens, she successfully managed to upgrade her image nearly overnight when a candid and ... shall we say ... womanly self-pic of herself vamping in a bra and panties hit the Intertubes early this year... and just happened, shockingly, to coincide with her 18th birthday.
The transition from child star to young starlet can be a trying time for both starlet and fan, and it's very convenient and really much easier on everybody when the younger starlets give us such an official go-ahead to start leering at them. Hats off to Mackenzie and Vanessa for streamlining the process!
8. Laura VandervoortOh, to be the casting director for Smallville, to be sitting in the planning room when your writers tell you that they think it's time to introduce Supergirl into the show, and do you think you could go out and run the auditions for this part? We're going to need somebody blond, blue-eyed, all-American, perfectly in shape, young and hot. Hey, remember, don't forget the hot part, since this girl is going to be playing a superhuman. Spare no expense, casting director, and leave no stone unturned until you find the perfect Supergirl.
We hope that casting director got a raise, because they chose quite wisely in Laura Vandervoort. By the way, you can add Vandervoort to the ever-lengthening list of blazing hotties with an early-career connection to Disney pap - she starred alongside Caroline Rhea and Robert Carradine in a 2000 Disney Channel original movie entitled Mom's Got A Date With A Vampire, and that puts Disney at a 6.5 to 4 advantage over Nickelodeon.
7. Arielle KebbelUGO has the technology to read your mind. Fortunately for you, we only use this technology for parlor tricks, because man, you would be SO screwed if we were actually malicious with this power. But if you don't believe us, let us prove it to you - when you just clicked that link that said "Arielle Kebbel" you thought "Who the hell is that?" and then when you actually came to this page and looked at that picture, you thought - well, unfortunately, we can't publish that thought. But we fully agree with you.
Miss Kebbel hasn't got her career fully started yet - to date, her highest-profile role has been a starring turn in The Grudge 2, in which she got herself killed by yet another one of those humorless long-haired Japanese ghost-children. Somebody's really got to reel those kids in.
6. Emily BrowningA Series Of Unfortunate Events turned out to be a surprisingly quiet performer at the box office, but that certainly couldn't have been due to Emily Browning's turn in the lead role of Violet Baudelaire. While she was adorably winning in that movie, Browning has grown up quickly and has become nothing short of dazzling at 19 (but don't take our word for it, just look at her!)
Browning took a couple of years off after Series to finish up high school, and she'll next be starring with fellow underexposed hottie Arielle Kebbel in The Uninvited. With such double-barreled lusciousness headlining that flick, we'll make an effort to see that one even if it turns out to be a feature-length treatment of that wretched Alanis Morrissette song.
5. Megan FoxYou know those muscle-car magazines that feature sensational yet deeply incongruous babes draped alluringly over the hood of a tricked-out Mustang, clearly in an effort to corner the market on all male eyeballs by presenting the two things that no man can resist? So did the casting directors for last summer's Transformers, clearly . And wisely, they've already got her under contract for the next two installments in the franchise - so get ready for future summers of hot Megan & machine action.
According to Wikipedia, Megan Fox gets a tattoo whenever she "has a feeling about anything." Megan Fox is twenty-two years of age, meaning she has been able to get inked for four years, and only has nine tattoos. So UGO is sorry to report that Megan Fox is obviously almost completely emotionally dead inside. Good thing, then, that on the outside Megan Fox is pretty damned alive.
4. Keira KnightleyYou know you're going to have a successful career in Hollywood when you get your first significant role based on the fact that people can't tell you apart from Natalie Portman (Knightley played Queen Amidala's decoy in The Phantom Menace .) It also helps when you're hot enough for it to be believable that both Johnny Depp AND Orlando Bloom would compete for you in your breakout starring role ( Pirates of the Caribbean .) And if you want to get (tastefully) naked on the cover of Vanity Fair along with fellow young hottie Scarlett Johansson, well, sister, who are we to argue?
Knightley's hotness seems simultaneously aristocratic and down-to-earth, allowing her to pull off the above-mentioned upper-class and royalty roles (along with parts in Pride and Prejudice and King Arthur ) while avoiding the off-putting brittleness that many actors bring to such parts. However, we'd love to see Knightley in some more laid-back roles like her turn in Bend It Like Beckham . A lady both this hot and this talented must not remain typecast! Unleash Keira's hotness on all genres!
3. Scarlett JohanssonScarlett Johansson is mostly known for exuding placid, sad-eyed beauty in critically acclaimed flicks like Ghost World, The Man Who Wasn't There and Lost In Translation , but this girl gets around. She's also appeared in a number of decidedly non-classic pictures like Eight Legged Freaks and - seriously, we wouldn't joke about this - The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie .
It's been said that the faces of all truly beautiful women tell a story, and if this is true, clearly the story that Johansson's face tells is "I challenge you not to star at my lusciously ambrosial lips. Keep trying, sucker. Keep trying ... oh, you lost." According to the never-wrong Wikipedia, Johansson has been quoted as saying she doesn't believe in monogamy, so take heart - your chances with her remain greater than 0 percent even after her reported May engagement to Ryan Reynolds, although we don't have the computing power here at UGO to nail down the exact number.
2. Miley CyrusDisney delivers the knockout blow to Nickelodeon, finishing with a dominating streak of unanswered starlets that gives them a 7.5 to 4 win.
Back in April, Miss Hannah Montana was in a bit of a media imbroglio (that's from an Italian word that means "dudes, are you f'n kidding me") when she posed for some pictures with super-ultra-extra respected photographer Annie Leibovitz for super-ultra-extra-respected magazine Vanity Fair and it turned out that some of the shots were mildly sexualized! Can you believe it? How low can the media sink, pretending that the popular appeal of Miley Cyrus is in any way based on her looks, and not solely on her rich acting chops or her stunning musical performances of top-80 hits like "Pumpin' Up the Party," "If We Were A Movie" and her stellar rendition of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree?"
We can't speak for the rest of the world - who knows what's going on in their ghoulish minds - but when we look at Miley Cyrus, we see only one thing. Potential. Great potential.
1. Hayden Panettiere
Students of hotness have long known that there are many classifications of hotness. There's the "yeah, she's pretty cute" hotness, the "wow, she's amazing" hotness, and then the "dude, that's just not FAIR" hotness. Ms. Hayden Panettiere is the quintessential example of this particular strain of hotness - from perfect goldilocks to winning smile to mischievous eyes to ... well, you know, to all other parts that comprise the human body, Hayden has got it going on as throughly as it has ever been gotten in recent memory.
It's been pointed out that Hayden's character on Heroes , indestructible cheerleader Claire Bennet, bears somewhat of a thematic resemblance to Bruce Willis's character from the movie Unbreakable. Let's all take this moment to give thanks that we don't live in the considerably less fun alternate universe where Bruce Willis was cast in the role of Claire Bennet, and congratulate Hayden Panettiere on being the hottest young thing on the screen today.
source:southdreamz.com
