Angourie Rice: 6 Essential Roles to Get to Know The Finding Emily Star

It’s remarkable to think, but Angourie Rice was barely 14-years-old when she held her own opposite Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling in Shane Black's The Nice Guys. If we're being honest, she actually steals quite a few scenes.

This absolute gem of a buddy cop movie sees the two great actors on top form as a couple of morally dubious private detectives in 1970s Los Angeles — imagine if Chinatown and Step Brothers had a very funny baby and you'll have some idea of the tone — but it's the chaotic energy and fizzy chemistry between the three of them that makes it a true modern cult classic.

If proof was needed of how Rice’s performance in The Nice Guys caught the attention of Hollywood, consider that Sofia Coppola cast her in The Beguiled — in a co-starring role alongside Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning — just a few months later.

Granted, the movie is a bit of minor one in Coppola’s career as a filmmaker, but it effectively updated the Don Seigel/Clint Eastwood classic for a modern audience and (more interestingly still) with a female gaze. Colin Farrell takes the role originally played by Clint: a Civil War deserter who brings a dangerous spark of sexual energy to an all girls boarding school.

At 16, Rice enjoyed her first Hollywood starring role in Every Day, a romantic fantasy about a girl who falls in love with a travelling soul who wakes up in a different body every day — kind of Quantum Leap style, but used here more to show that it's what’s on the inside that counts, and all that schmaltzy stuff.

Based on David Levithan’s bestselling YA novel — the first of a hugely popular trilogy — this is a Rice joint that fans of movies like About Time and The Fault in Our Stars will love.

Rice’s most famous role to date has to be Betty Brant — the busybody classmate of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in his standalone MCU movies. Rice has so far appeared in all three of Holland’s Spider-Man instalments and will likely continue that trend this summer in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

In Homecoming and No Way Home, Rice’s comic relief role was mostly kept to the margins but she got to come more into the narrative in the Euro-trip adventures of Far From Home — mostly thanks to her lovey-dovey holiday romance with Ned, Peter’s best pal.

Given the abilities she’s shown as an actor so far, it’s a bit surprising that Rice hasn’t popped up in more acclaimed dramas. The exception to that rule for now is Mare of Easttown: a fantastic HBO miniseries that stars a rarely better Kate Winslet as a boozy and cantankerous Delco cop on the hunt for a missing girl. 

Aside from earning justifiable comparisons to the better seasons of True Detective, this is basically the show that announced Brad Ingelsby (who’s since gone on to make Task) as Delaware's answer to David Simon. It also gave Rice the chance to act alongside Winslet (who plays her mother) and the great Jean Smart (as her grandmother) — the latter of whom was mere weeks away from beginning her generational run on Hacks.

Long story short, it's a brilliant miniseries that once again proved Rice's ability to stand out alongside some of the best actors on the planet.

Like the great Reese Witherspoon before her, Angourie Rice was simply born to play preppy overachievers — especially ones with a ruthless side. Her underseen 2022 indie movie Honor Society could be seen as a Gen Z update of the Witherspoon classic Election, but there’s a benevolence at this movie's core that you won’t find in Alexander Payne’s caustic second feature.

Surprisingly similar to Park Chan Wook’s recent banger No Other Choice, Honor Society sees Rice play a high school student who is so desperate to earn a scholarship that she’s willing to destroy the chances of the three other students in contention. This includes a likable nerd (played by Stranger Things MVP Gaten Matarazzo) who she inevitably starts to fall for. We should probably leave it there.