Welcome once again to the annual ComicBook.com Golden Issue Awards! Every year, the staff here at ComicBook.com takes a look back at the year as a whole and selects the best of what comics, movies, television, anime, and video games had to offer.

All around television, and especially in our nerdy little pocket of the industry, women gave some absolutely jaw-dropping performances in 2018. This was the year that Doctor Who‘s Jodie Whitaker shattered glass ceilings, The Good Place star D’Arcy Carden portrayed every single lead character from the show in just one episode, and so many other fantastic actresses wowed audiences week in and week out. But, according to our Golden Issue
voters, there was one performance that stood out among the rest.

And the winner of Best TV Actress is…

Victoria Pedretti, for her role as Nell Crain in Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House!

From the very first episode of Mike Flanagan’s horror-drama, Pedretti absolutely broke our hearts. Nell was equal parts troubled and strong, and she carried more emotional baggage than perhaps any other character on TV this year. She was far and away the anchor of the entire ensemble, and the biggest moments of the series hinged on her performance. Fortunately Pedretti was consistently up to the task, always stealing scenes with her harrowing work.

The pinnacle of Pedretti’s performance came halfway through the series, during the episode “The Bent-Neck Lady.” This was easily the most horrifying episode of the series, with a twist that changed the framework of the entire show, but it wouldn’t have worked without the roller-coaster performance from Victoria Pedretti. She elevated an already great show to something truly special, and Nell Crain is a character we will likely never forget.

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The editors at TV Guide are as guilty as anyone of spending 45 minutes searching for a new show to stream, only to return to an old fave like Parks and Recreation or Friday Night Lights. But that would be a shame considering the amazing new series and breakout actors this fall TV season.

We couldn’t stand the thought of you missing out on all the talent fresh on the scene this season, so we’re casting a spotlight on 10 breakout performances by actors who are also breaking boundaries, as well as five brand new shows that kept us on the edge of our seats as we binged episode after episode. (It’s a hard job, but someone’s gotta do it.)

Here, you’ll find the fruits our arduous labor: TV Guide’s inaugural Freshman 15 class. The Freshman 15 are the ones to watch. They’re actors who everyone will leap to say they were fans of first, and the shows that will come to join the ranks of the new classics. 2018 has proven itself an amazing year for television (if nothing else), and we hope you discover some fresh faves to stan — till next year’s Freshman 15 anyway.

Victoria Pedretti, The Haunting of Hill House
Whoever cast The Haunting of Hill House deserves all the Emmys. Not only do the actors playing the Crain family look staggeringly alike, but not one of the greener actors ever seem out of place next to Hollywood standouts like Carla Gugino and Timothy Hutton. But of all the up-and-comers in the cast, no one made quite as strong of an impression as Victoria Pedretti, who plays the youngest Crain child, Nell. With fewer credits to her name before Hill House than 13-year-old Lulu Wilson (Young Shirley), 12-year-old Mckenna Grace (Young Theo) and even 7-year-old Violet McGraw (Young Nell), Pedretti was a true Hollywood newcomer when she took on the role in the horror series. And yet Pedretti completely embodies the distraught young woman whose tragic story largely drives the first half of the season.

Pedretti’s ability to effortlessly vacillate between the most visceral turmoil to an effervescent peacefulness to literally being the ghost nightmares is not only impressive but also absolutely essential to the series, in which several of the most pivotal moments are anchored by Nell. The reveal that she is the Bent Neck Lady and has been haunting herself for decades was a powerful revelation made only more so by the horror we see reflected back in Nell’s own eyes. And the series’ surprisingly hopeful ending hinges largely on viewers believing Nell’s acceptance of her own fate and coming to terms with it much like she has. Hill House is one of the best new shows this year, horror or otherwise, and it’s hard to imagine it having such a strong impact without Pedretti’s performance providing such a captivating emotional through-line.

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Fox 5’s Entertainment Reporter, Kevin Mccarthy, Sat Down With The Cast Of The Haunting Of Hill House Including Kate Siegel, Henry Thomas, Victoria Pedretti, Michiel Huisman, Elizabeth Reaser & Oliver Jackson-Cohen.

Mingle Media TV and Red Carpet Report host, Camila Foreroo were at the Netflix’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House S1’ Premiere Event held at the Arclight Hollywood.

By now you’ve probably heard the incredible buzz on one of Netflix’s newest shows: The Haunting of Hill House. The ten-episode series, based on Shirley Jackson’s iconic horror novel of the same name, was created, directed, and executive produced by Mike Flanagan, whose credits include Oculus, Gerald’s Game, and Ouija: Origin of Evil. The story explores a group of siblings who grew up as children in what would become the most famous haunted house in the country. Now adults, the family must come face to face with their past in a very ghostly way. Shortly before the series premiered, I got to sit down with Henry Thomas, Victoria Pedretti and Kate Siegel for an exclusive video interview after seeing the first few episodes. They talked about getting to work with Mike Flanagan, how much they knew about the arc of the season before filming began, how the show is a family drama wrapped in the horror genre, how they shot the sixth episode (which was shot like a play with extremely long takes), and a lot more. While there are a lot of great choices on Netflix right now, I absolutely recommend checking out The Haunting of Hill House. It’s extremely well done and absolutely worth your time. The series also stars Michiel Huisman, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Elizabeth Reaser, Carla Gugino, Timothy Hutton, Lulu Wilson, Mckenna Grace, Paxton Singleton, Violet McGraw, and Julian Hilliard.

Henry Thomas, Michiel Huisman, Elizabeth Reaser, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Victoria Pedretti, Kate Siegel say their new Netflix’s horror series “The Haunting Of Hill House” is so scary they had a hard time getting through the 8-month shoot.

FOX 5’s Kevin McCarthy spoke with Henry Thomas, Victoria Pedretti and Kate Siegel, stars of the new Netflix show, The Haunting of Hill House.

There are a lot of scares in The Haunting of Hill House, but the person who gets to spend the most time literally haunting the rest of the cast is Victoria Pedretti.

**SPOILERS FOR EPISODES 1-8 OF The Haunting of Hill House AHEAD**
Victoria Pedretti plays Eleanor “Nell” Crain, the youngest member of the Crain family in The Haunting of Hill House, and by the end of Episode 1, the recently-deceased Nell is already haunting her siblings. After Episode 1, Pedretti plays the living Nell in flashbacks, but most of her appearances are as a specter or corpse. In fact, it’s revealed at the end of Episode 5 that the eerie “Bent-Neck Lady” that spooked Nell as a child (and throughout her life) was actually a vision of Nell’s eventual fate. The dead Nell was visiting herself to warn her younger, living self of what would happen.

Decider asked Pedretti if it was more fun or more challenging to play a ghost. “Yeah, that was really fun! I get to scare people,” Pedretti said. “It always has to come from somewhere. Like, the idea isn’t to scare, ultimately, it’s to try to say something, but it just comes out as ‘Agh!‘”

Pedretti brought up the scene at the end of Episode 1, “Steven Sees A Ghost,” where Nell appears in brother Steven’s (Michiel Huisman) apartment at the moment of her death. “Like, she’s trying to talk because she’s just like newly dead and still in this confused state. And that’s more of a ‘Ah! What is happening?’ You know? So that’s what I ended up doing with that. I guess you don’t have to do that. I found it made it make sense for me,” she said.

One of Nell’s most frightening jump scares happens in Episode 8, “Witness Marks.” While sisters Shirley (Elizabeth Reaser) and Theo (Kate Siegel) are arguing en route to Hill House, a rotted version of Nell’s body jumps out between them, causing both sisters to freak out. (Oh, and it literally made me scream out loud in my apartment over the weekend.)

“In the moment in the car, when I jump out and scare them, what’s in my mind is, ‘Shut the fuck up and get over this fight!’ It’s not about like, ‘Boo, boo!’ It came from a deeper place and a real need, so that’s why it’s so loud and like immediate,” Pedretti said.

As it turns out, Pedretti frightened herself shooting that particular scene. “I knew it was happening [and] I screamed — at myself!”
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Everyone who has watched even the first five minutes of Netflix’s new series “The Haunting of Hill House” knows it is dark and depressing.

But if you are one of those fans who likes to dig a little deeper — and maybe pour some salt in the wounds the Crain family’s story has created in you — then this theory is for you: each of the five adult children represent one of the stages of grief.

Tumblr user cagedbirdsong was one of the first to call out that amazing detail about Mike Flanagan’s TV adaptation of the Shirley Jackson novel, showing that Steve (Michiel Huisman) is denial, Shirley (Elizabeth Reaser) is anger, Theo (Kate Siegel) is bargaining, Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is depression and Nell (Victoria Pedretti) is acceptance.

And yes, that is also going in birth order there. We know, your mind equals blown right now.

But if you didn’t pick up on this oh-so-perfect aspect of the spooky series, never fear, because Pedretti didn’t either.

“I totally see it now,” Pedretti said in an interview with TV Guide. “I get what people are saying, the idea that we represent the various stages of grief but it was never a discussion when we were working.”
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