2022 found a number of high profile actors embroiled in real life dramas that were more gripping than their acting roles. Some reputations have been tarnished, while others have been revived and for many actors the craft of acting has taken a backseat in the grand opera that is real life.
Collated from millions of searches on Yahoo, these were the actors you were searching for the most over the past 12 months.
10: Tom Cruise
After many Covid-inflicted delays, Tom Cruise finally returned as Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick in 2022, the year he turned 60.
Read more: The best movies new to streaming over Christmas 2022
The sequel to his 1986 hit was worth the wait and gave Cruise the biggest hit of his career taking £1.2 billon at the worldwide box office.
9: Michelle Keegan
Coronation Street and Our Girl star Michelle Keegan was back as the fiery Erin in the fourth series of Sky’s hit comedy series Brassic in 2022. A fifth series has already started filming for release in 2023, while Keegan is also set to star in Ten Pound Poms, a new BBC drama.
8: Millie Bobby Brown
Millie Bobby Brown was the unofficial queen of Netflix in 2022, returning as Eleven in the fourth series of the hit 1980s-set sci-fi series Stranger Things, and as Sherlock’s younger sister in Enola Holmes 2. Brown also turned 18 in February and celebrated her big day by dressing up as Barbie and Ken with her boyfriend Jake Bongiovi.
7: Emma Watson
Emma Watson returned to our screens on New Year’s Day 2022, but not in an acting role. She was part of Return To Hogwarts, the Harry Potter reunion special, alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint. Her last acting role came in 2019’s Little Women, but Watson remains a favourite online generating headlines when she returned to the pixie haircut look.
6: Daniel Craig
After leaving James Bond behind for good in 2021, Daniel Craig has simply been living his best life in 2022. He’s back as super-sleuth Benoit Blanc in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery which earned rave reviews on the festival circuit and hits Netflix in time for Christmas, and he also found time to break the internet with his dance moves in a new vodka ad.
5: David Jason
Best known for playing Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses, 82-year-old David Jason continues to live rent free in the minds of most of the UK population.
Read more: David Jason says he’s drifted apart from Nicholas Lyndhust
With no major acting roles in 2022 to speak of, a dangerous brush with Covid kept him in the news this year with Jason telling BBC News: ‘I got it seriously bad’.
4: Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone is in the midst of something of a renaissance. In 2022 he starred in Prime Video’s superhero drama Samaritan and he made his premium TV debut leading mobster drama Tulsa King. However, his busy diary came at a cost, and he temporarily split from his wife Jennifer Flavin before they reconciled in September.
3: Will Smith
Will Smith won his first ever Oscar and has a brand new movie out — Emancipation — but that’s not what the Fresh Prince star will be remembered for in 2022. The actor received a ten year ban from the Academy Awards after storming the stage during the Oscars to slap Chris Rock after the comic made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith. It was the most shocking moment of the year, and will live long in the memory.
2: Amber Heard
Aquaman star Amber Heard was one half of 2022’s most high profile celebrity court case. She was sued by her ex-husband Johnny Depp in a multimillion-dollar US lawsuit which ultimately ruled her 2018 article in the Washington Post — in which she claimed she was a victim of sexual and physical abuse — as defamatory. Following the verdict, the heard said she was ‘heartbroken’, but “even even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women”.
1: Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp, the other half of the case, was awarded compensatory damages of $10 million (£8 million) and a further five million dollars (£4 million) in punitive damages. His fans have claimed the murky verdict as a moral victory for the actor, who has returned to acting, and has been seen performing on stage with Jeff Beck.
Watch: The fallout from the Depp v Heard case continues
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