FUTURE PRESENCE

Maria Amparo Escandon

Novelist, screenwriter, 42

What she’s done: What began as a way to pass time polishing her English writing skills developed into a best-selling novel in both Spanish and English. Escandon, a Mexico City native, was stunned by the success of her first book, “Esperanza’s Box of Saints,” an eccentric romantic comedy about a woman who refuses to believe her only daughter has died. Its success prompted her to turn it into a screenplay. And again to her surprise, her script was accepted into the Sundance Screenwriters Workshop, where it caught the eye of Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Springall. “Santitos,” directed by Springall, will be released by start-up distribution company Latin Universe in the U.S. in January.

Outlook for 2000: Escandon has finished a second screenplay, “Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co.,” a coming-of-age father-daughter story set in the offbeat world of border truck driving. She also is polishing a novel in English based on the screenplay. “It’s a Southwest road trip,” said Escandon, who spent nearly a year researching the subject. “I hung out with the salespeople and the truckers . . . , and then we’d go to their watering holes. It’s all an incredible culture.”

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China Chow

Actress, 25

What she’s done: This 5-foot-4 actress, daughter of Los Angeles restaurateur Michael Chow and the late model-designer Tina Chow, says it was a fluke that she got into movies. True, she was comfortable in front of a camera, having modeled for Shiseido cosmetics and Tommy Hilfiger. Still, a month after she graduated from Scripps College with a psychology degree in 1997 (becoming the first person in her family to finish college), she was surprised to hear from the casting director for the action-comedy “The Big Hit.” “He was a friend of someone I knew a little bit, and he kept calling,” she recalled. Cast as the kidnapping victim of a young hit man played by Mark Wahlberg, Chow got good notices for more than her looks.

Outlook for 2000: She plays a lesbian art restorer in Universal Pictures’ “Head Over Heels,” a romantic comedy with Monica Potter and Freddie Prinze Jr. due in theaters in April. Lisa, Chow’s character, works with Amanda (Potter), a twentysomething career girl looking for love in New York City.

Next up, Chow is in talks to do an independent film called “Beauty Loop,” a romantic comedy from writer-director John Huddles (“At Sachem Farm”). The film, which also stars Minnie Driver, is about a handsome college student who works his way through school as a gigolo and the women who love him. On the personal front, Chow has another goal: eating somewhere other than her dad’s restaurants, Mr. Chow and Eurochow. “I end up eating there so much, and it’s never my idea,” she said. “I do love the food, but come on, I’ve been eating it since birth.”

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Hill Harper

Film and television actor, 26

What he’s done: While studying law at Harvard, Harper missed classes sometimes for as much as three weeks at a time, traveling to New York and Los Angeles to audition and act in television movies and plays. The son of a college professor and a psychiatrist, Harper says he never intended to practice law. After graduating from Brown University, where he concentrated in sociology, economics and theater, he says he enrolled in law school partly as a “security blanket.” Since moving to Los Angeles three years ago, he has worked steadily in such films as “Beloved” and “He Got Game” and in TV shows like “NYPD Blue” and “Married . . . With Children.” In 1995 he snagged a role in the short-lived UPN series “Live Shot.” He thought he’d gotten his big break when he was chosen for the title role in “The Nephew,” a Pierce Brosnan-produced film set in Ireland in which Brosnan also appeared, but the film went direct to video in the U.S. In the as-yet-unreleased independent film “The Visit,” Harper plays a prison inmate dying of AIDS. The drama also stars Billy Dee Williams, Phylicia Rashad and Obba Babatunde.

Outlook for 2000: Harper stars in “Losing Jezebel,” a romantic comedy to be distributed by the Shooting Gallery in conjunction with cable networks BET and Starz, and he appears in “The Skulls,” a teen thriller from Universal Pictures due in February and starring Joshua Jackson (TV’s “Dawson’s Creek”). On Steven Bochco’s new medical series “City of Angels,” he plays an egotistical young surgeon. The series, which debuts Jan. 19, has an ensemble cast that includes Blair Underwood, Vivica A. Fox, Robert Morse and Michael Warren and is being helmed by multiple Emmy winner Paris Barclay. The show, which features mostly African American characters (and a largely black crew), is airing in the wake of strong criticism directed at the networks for their lack of diversity. Harper worries that CBS won’t give it the opportunity to build an audience. “I don’t think people should say that if Steven Bochco and this group of people can’t pull off a successful [black] show, then we shouldn’t ever try again,” Harper says, noting that popular shows such as “The Practice” and “Seinfeld” weren’t immediate hits.

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John Lesher

United Talent Agency agent, 33

What he’s done: After majoring in East Asian languages at Harvard, Lesher started in Hollywood as Marty Bauer’s secretary at Bauer-Benedek, which became UTA after a 1991 merger. Lesher is now a UTA partner and co-manages the agency’s motion picture department with Dan Aloni and board member Jeremy Zimmer. Known in the industry as having a keen eye for fresh filmmaking talent, Lesher’s clients include Paul Thomas Anderson (“Magnolia”), David O. Russell (“Three Kings”), Wes Anderson (“Rushmore”), Kimberly Peirce (“Boys Don’t Cry”) and Ben Stiller (“Reality Bites”).

Outlook for 2000: A number of Lesher’s director clients will have films out later this year. Ted Demme (“Life”) has made “Blow” with Johnny Depp; James Gray (“Little Odessa”) has “The Yards” with Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron; while Boaz Yakim (“Fresh”) has “Remember the Titans,” which stars Denzel Washington. Clearly, Lesher says, “we’re seeing a real changing of the guard” in Hollywood. “The studio movies that worked a few years ago aren’t working anymore. It’s time to make way for some new voices.” If Lesher’s clients have anything in common, it’s an independent spirit. “They’re always willing to take chances,” he says. “I always feel as if I’m in the middle of something creative and exciting.”

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Todd Garner and Nina Jacobson

Buena Vista Motion Pictures co-presidents, both 34

What they’ve done: It’s hard to imagine two more different people sharing a top studio post. Garner grew up in the San Fernando Valley, attended Occidental College and worked as a Wells Fargo loan officer before taking a finance job at Paramount Pictures. Jacobson grew up in Brentwood, went to Brown University and worked on documentaries before becoming an executive at Universal and DreamWorks. When asked how they became co-presidents last year, Jacobson quips: “Our boss got fired and we got his job.” They each have different strengths, but, as Garner says, “We get along because we complement each other, personally and professionally.” Garner specializes in Disney’s youth comedy and action films, having built good relationships with Adam Sandler and Jerry Bruckheimer. Jacobson worked closely last year with M. Night Shyamalan on “The Sixth Sense.”

Outlook for 2000: The executives have high hopes for a variety of films, including “102 Dalmatians”; “Mission to Mars”; Shyamalan’s next film, “Unbreakable”; and a trio of films produced by Bruckheimer. “By the end of the year, I hope we’ll be able to say we’ve hit more than we’ve missed,” says Garner. The executives pride themselves on building filmmaker relationships that Jacobson says they hope “will give us our generation’s version of a Billy Wilder or Frank Capra.”

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Don Davis

Film composer, 42

What he’s done: When the Wachowski brothers came to Davis asking if he would write the score for their new ultra-high-tech action thriller “The Matrix,” they made one request: Be as bold and inventive as the images on the screen. Davis, who had worked with the filmmakers on “Bound,” was inspired by the postmodernist movement on today’s concert stages. His driving, relentlessly hypnotic score for “The Matrix” incorporates elements of popular music, electronic synthesizer effects and a touch of the avant-garde, using a 90-piece orchestra, three grand pianos and a 40-voice choir. 1999 saw Davis score two other films, “Universal Soldier: The Return” and the campy horror film “House on Haunted Hill.” Growing up in Anaheim, Davis began playing the trumpet and piano at 9 and writing music at 12. After attending UCLA, he landed a job as orchestrator on the TV series “The Incredible Hulk.” For the next two decades, Davis submerged himself in his work, composing scores for such TV shows as “Hart to Hart,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “seaQuest DSV,” winning two Emmys. “Television is great work,” observes Davis, who lives in Calabasas with his wife, Megan, and two children, but “It’s rare in television that you get to work with a big orchestra and a big choir and have the luxury of enough time to get everything just right.”

Outlook for 2000: Davis is waiting for the Wachowski brothers to deliver their scripts on the two sequels to “The Matrix.” Warner Bros. plans to shoot the films back to back in an unusual production schedule designed to cut costs. Davis also is up to score a 10-minute digitally animated movie called “Osaka,” about a museum being built in Japan devoted to the history of that region. He also “would like the opportunity to score warm, melodic films. I would have loved to have scored ‘Angela’s Ashes’ that the master, John Williams, had the opportunity to do.”