The Original ‘Scott Pilgrim’ Cast, Definitively Power-Ranked

COURTESY OF NETFLIX

The ‘80s had Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the ‘90s had Dazed and Confused, and the ‘00s had Mean Girls, but for the 2010s, the film that seemed to launch an entire generation of young actors is undeniably Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Edgar Wright’s adaptation of the Bryan Lee O’Malley graphic-novel series, starring Michael Cera in the title role, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as the mercurial Ramona Flowers, and everyone from Chris Evans to Aubrey Plaza in supporting roles, wasn’t a big box office hit upon its release in the summer of 2010, but it’s both a blast to watch and an important cultural artifact of the era.

Improbably, after reportedly reconnecting via a nine-years-dormant email chain, the entire cast has reunited to voice their original Scott Pilgrim roles in an animated adaptation of the comic, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, which will be released by Netflix on Friday. Leaning into the anime aesthetic via Japanese studio Science SARU, the show seems like a well-timed spin on the story of young love and evil exes. More than that, it’s a perfect excuse to compile a not-at-all-destined-to-be controversial power ranking of the key young actors from the 2010 film. Our criteria is a mix of commercial success, critical praise, and ambiguous qualitative appraisal. Please, nobody get mad at us.

13. Johnny Simmons

Now 36, Johnny Simmons hasn’t managed to match the acting success of his early 20s, taking time off from the industry to go to college. He hasn’t acted since 2017, though in the years following Scott Pilgrim he did have supporting parts in well-liked movies including The Perks of Being a Wallflower and 21 Jump Street, while also holding the distinction of originating the role of Andrew Neiman, the abused protege of J.K. Simmons’ manic music teacher, in Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash short film. He also showed up in Drake’s “Hold On, We’re Going Home” video, so there’s that.

12. Ellen Wong

Ellen Wong made the best of a difficult role in Scott Pilgrim as the titular character’s continually dismissed (and underage) girlfriend Knives Chau. Since then, she’s been selective about her projects, but has given strong performances in ambitious genre films like The Void and was one of the best parts of Netflix’s ‘80s wrestling show GLOW. She also hosted the enthralling art heist podcast Dynamite Doug, focusing on the laundry list of looting allegations against Douglas Latchford.

11. Brandon Routh

Brandon Routh came out of obscurity to play Clark Kent in 2006’s Superman Returns, but that iconic role did not make his career take off faster than a speeding bullet. Instead, Routh, whose performance as a bleach blonde vegan rockstar is one of the funniest in Scott Pilgrim, has settled into a steady life as a TV star. He’s an important part of CW’s Arrowverse, playing The Atom, and even reprised his Superman role in The Flash, but it’d be difficult to put Routh much higher in these rankings, since he’s not an above-the-titles star like Larson, Evans or Plaza.

10. Mae Whitman

One of many Scott Pilgrim cast members who began acting as a kid, Mae Whitman has become a reliable comedic talent, albeit in often underseen films like Bernard and Huey and The DUFF. Her most high-profile work has come in the television realm, co-starring in Good Girls and Parenthood, while lending her distinct voice to a variety of superhero projects and animated sitcoms.

9. Alison Pill

After a successful run as a child actor, Alison Pill quietly transitioned to playing key supporting roles in a variety of projects, most notably Snowpiercer alongside Evans, Midnight in Paris as Zelda Fitzgerald, and the Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar! She’s also built up a robust CV on television, joining the American Horror Story universe, co-starring in Aaron Sorkin’s journalism drama The Newsroom, and portraying a scientist-turned-Borg Queen in the well-liked Star Trek: Picard. Pill doesn’t always get the kinds of meaty roles her talent merits, but she never fails to make the most of her screentime, and has an uncommonly high floor as a character actor.

8. Kieran Culkin

One of the great wisecrackers of our time, Kieran Culkin shined as Scott’s roommate Wallace Wells. And though film success hasn’t come consistently, Culkin rightly earned heaps of praise and an armful of Emmy nods for his performance as Roman Roy in HBO’s Succession. Lobbing insults with aplomb, while also making viewers feel his woundedness and desperate need for genuine connection, Roman’s arc over the show’s four seasons was captivating and heartbreaking. With Succession in the rearview, Culkin’s career is at an intriguing crossroads, but Jesse Eisenberg’s travelog family drama A Real Pain promises the kind of meaty role he deserves.

7. Mary Elizabeth Winstead

No Scott Pilgrim role is more iconic than Winstead’s Ramona Flowers—she’s even more recognizable than Pilgrim himself. In the ensuing years, she’s become one of the best genre actors we have, with noteworthy roles in Ahsoka, The Thing, and Swiss Army Man. She also turned in perhaps the single best performance of any Pilgrim alumni with 10 Cloverfield Lane, a razor sharp sci-fi film that shines thanks to her committed work, and proves a lesson also emphasized by Scott Pilgrim: you don’t need a $200 million budget to make a great franchise picture if you have a game cast and a killer plot.

6. Jason Schwartzman

Thanks to his work in Tumblr classics like Rushmore and Marie Antoinette, Jason Schwartzman came into Scott Pilgrim as one of its most established stars. He shined as Gideon Graves, the evilest of all the evil exes, and has built up an enviable career paying characters both earnest and insufferable. A key repertory player for directors like Wes Anderson and Alex Ross Perry, Schwawrtzman shines in an ensemble, and has had recent opportunities to showcase his comedic chops in Quiz Lady, Asteroid City, and the best sketch from I Think You Should Leave’s third season. Box office success doesn’t usually come with Schwartzman’s bread-and-butter projects, but he’s a voice in the recent, beloved animated Spider-Man movies, and stars as the ostentatious host of the Hunger Games in the eagerly anticipated The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

5. Anna Kendrick

Because of projects like Scott Pilgrim, Up in the Air, and the first Pitch Perfect, as well as her particular brand of sarcastic humor Anna Kendrick is an actor who many viewers instinctually identify with the 2010s. But Kendrick has done some of her absolute best work in the last half-decade, from starring in the twisty comedic mystery A Simple Favor to carrying the weighty drama Alice, Darling as a woman trying to disentangle herself from an abusive relationship. She’s got some duds in there, and has appeared in entirely too many Trolls films, but Kendrick remains a force in Hollywood, and deserves additional props for directing and starring in the excellent period serial killer film Woman of the Hour.

4. Michael Cera

And here we arrive at Scott Pilgrim himself. Cera has transitioned gracefully from early-career roles that played on his boyish looks and straight-man abilities (Scott Pilgrim, Juno, Arrested Development) to a wide-ranging career in film and TV. He was one of the most beloved parts of Barbie as Ken’s friend Allan, and plays the funniest supporting character in Dream Scenario as a clueless millennial marketing exec. Cera isn’t headlining box-office toppers, but he’s built an enviable career with memorable supporting turns in commercial fare, meatier parts in indie projects, and a pretty robust array of voice roles.

3. Aubrey Plaza

When Scott Pilgrim hit theaters, Parks and Recreation had been on the air for just two seasons, and Aubrey Plaza hadn’t yet become Hollywood’s preeminent snark artist. Since then, she’s largely eschewed easy franchise stuff in favor of endearing oddball indies (Safety Not Guaranteed, Ingrid Goes West, The Little Hours) and refused to be typecast as deadpan comic relief. The last few years have been particularly fruitful for Plaza—she turned in two of the best performances of her career in Black Bear and Emily the Criminal and earned 2024 Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for The White Lotus. She’s also broadened her creative horizons, planning a directorial debut, launching a production company, and writing a children’s book.

2. Chris Evans

If this were purely a ranking of box-office supremacy, Chris Evans would sit comfortably at the top, having wielded Captain America’s shield to huge success in three solo films and four zeitgeist-conquering Avengers movies. The problem is that Evans hasn’t really established a high floor for himself outside of the Marvel infrastructure, save for his performance as the wisecracking black-sheep grandson in Knives Out, which was very much an ensemble piece. Otherwise, Evans has been hamstrung by excessively down-the-middle projects like the action romcom disaster Ghosted, the staid Russo Brothers spy flick The Gray Man, and, most recently, the misguided pharma drama Pain Hustlers. What he needs is another Snowpiercer—an ambitious, proudly odd project that allows him to be his charismatic, hunky self in a more novel cinematic context.

1. Brie Larson

A 2016 Academy Award winner and the face of a Marvel franchise, Larson has achieved the mix of critical success and mainstream ubiquity that actors spend decades striving for. An underwhelming first-weekend box office and ho-hum reviews for The Marvels shouldn’t detract from her stellar run of films since the 2010s, including a memorable performance in the moving Short Term 12, crucial turns in The Spectacular Now and Digging For Fire, as well as her career-defining work in Room. Larson’s directorial debut, Unicorn Store, may be a little too quirky for comfort, but she did some fine non-superhero work this year in the intriguing and underseen Apple TV+ series Lessons in Chemistry.

Originally Appeared on GQ