Below are ten actors and actresses -- some more recognizable than others -- who represent the best and brightest currently working in film. Their differences are vast: they are men and women of various ages, representing many different backgrounds. So what do they all have in common? For starters, none of them have ever won an Academy Award, though several have been nominated at least once. Further, when it comes to the mainstream Hollywood career path, each one has diverged in slightly left-of-center directions.

West Bengal’s chief minister promised to turn Calcutta into London. But Joss Whedon in the Marvel comics saga, The Avengers, has gone backwards instead. Calcutta in the age of superheroes looks suspiciously like the one described in the City of Joy circa 1985 – cramped, squalid and leprous. Mark Ruffalo is Dr. Bruce Banner, keeping his inner Hulk under control by saving the eternally ill slum-dwellers of Calcutta.