Alfie Allen

In 2011, Alfie Allen became one of a bevy of relatively unknown British and Irish actors to set the genre entertainment spheres afire as denizens of a sprawling virtual world of swords and sorcery on HBO's groundbreaking series, "Game of Thrones" (2011). The scion of a U.K. show-business family, Allen began picking up small youth roles in the first decade of the 21st century before landing the high-profile lead as a disturbed boy in a touring revival of "Equus" in 2008. He landed his first major television job as a troubled youth in an arc of the BBC's "Casualty 1900s" (2006-09), then a sequence of youth roles in a string of indie films such as "Powder" (2010), "Soulboy" (2010) and "The Kid" (2010). In 2010, he landed on one of the boldest new shows coming out of the U.S., winning the role of Theon Greyjoy, the mercurial, conflicted prince torn between two great noble houses in conflict on "Game of Thrones." Allen, like any number of his castmates, would be tabbed as one of the freshest new talents to come out of the British Isles.