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John Cusack

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Zeitgeist Chronicler
Cameron Crowe

Age: 39 Why him?: Has put new spins on Xer angst (Singles) and love vs. career (Jerry Maguire). How he does it: The right music. "'In Your Eyes' for Say Anything... brought everything to life," says Crowe. What's next: He wants to direct Tom Cruise in a Phil Spector biopic.

Claywright
Nick Park

Age: 38 Why him?: His Oscar-winning clay creations Wallace and Gromit are to Gumby as Rembrandts are to cave paintings. How he does it: By nature a painstaking loner (his first, 24-minute film took six years), Park says he's "learning to let go...somebody called me a jealous God." Creative crutch: A paper clip with a handle for adjusting W&G's eyes. What's next: Codirecting the full-length film Chicken Run with fellow Aardman animator Peter Lord.

Indie Queen
Lili Taylor

Age: 30 Why her?: In 22 films over nine years, Taylor's built a following playing brooding, raw, or vulnerable people like Valerie Solanas of I Shot Andy Warhol. How she does it: For three weeks, from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., she rereads the script, writing a dossier on her character's feelings, then she rehearses alone for two weeks. "I have a method," she says, "but I'm not Method." What's next: September's Kicked in the Head.

Nick Cassavetes
The Legacy

Age: 38 Why him?: The son of indie pioneer John Cassavetes and screen siren Gena Rowlands upholds the family tradition — and bolsters his own rep — by directing deeply personal films like Unhook the Stars, for which he was paid $175,000, and She's So Lovely, which recently nabbed Sean Penn the Best Actor prize at Cannes. How he does it: Sweat. "Basically, because I'm not the biggest genius in the world, I've got to work harder than everybody else," Cassavetes laughs. "So much of being in movies is that perceived notion of Hollywood glamour, when the reality is that you're working 20-hour days." Creative crutches: "Cigarettes and booze." What's next: New Line has tapped him to write a remake of Dad's 1976 cult fave The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.

Steve "Spaz" Williams
Mousepad Maestro

Age: 35 Why him?: Among the techno-talents at Lucas Digital's ILM shop, he stands out as a beastmaster. His unsolicited test footage of a T. rex skeleton on the prowl ("I built the bones on my own time, even though I was told not to") helped convince Steven Spielberg to drop plans for stop-motion animated dinos in Jurassic Park and plunge into computer-generated versions instead. He got an Oscar nod for turning Jim Carrey into a creature out of a Tex Avery cartoon in The Mask, which prompted George Lucas to have him re-create Jabba the Hutt, a huge rubber puppet in Return of the Jedi, as a CG creature for the Star Wars Special Edition. How he does it: Mainly, through a burning urge to take things apart. As a child, he was "totally into TV sets" and nearly electrocuted himself trying to dismantle one. He also draws lots of inspiration from footage of animals, like the sea lions he used for Jabba. "He was going to scuttle along on little anemone legs," says Williams, "but a big rolling motion looked a lot better." Creative crutch: Bowling — he loves watching that heavy ball mow down pins. What's next: August's adaptation of the comic book Spawn and a proposed remake of The Incredible Mr. Limpet with Jim Carrey.