Eight New Faces To Watch in '08

DANNY McBRIDE
...is the next Will Ferrell

''I'm calling it right now: He's the funniest person on the planet,'' declares Superbad star Jonah Hill. That's pretty big praise for a 30-year-old actor heretofore seen only in small roles in All the Real Girls, Hot Rod, and The Heartbreak Kid. But Danny McBride is already a cult hero to comedy insiders for his Ferrell-icious performance as a strip-mall tae kwon do instructor in a low-budget indie called The Foot Fist Way, which debuted at Sundance last year. It made the rounds to Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow, and Ferrell himself, who helped secure a spring '08 release for the film as an executive producer. McBride will also costar in three of next year's biggest studio comedies (Drillbit Taylor, Pineapple Express, and Tropic Thunder) and has shot a pilot for HBO (also produced by Ferrell) about a pro baseball player reduced to teaching PE at a middle school. If Ferrell and Apatow say he brings the funny, who are we to argue? —Josh Rottenberg