Gabourey Sidibe, the star of the film Precious, has been nominated for an Academy Award for best actress despite having no previous acting experience. (Charley Gallay/Getty Images)

There's an exhilaration that comes with watching a fledgling actor in a star-making role. Too inexperienced to know how to take shortcuts in front of the camera, rookie actors tend to give pure, from-the-gut performances so electrifying and forceful, they're often referred to as "breakouts."

Rookie performers face a number of factors – limited range, typecasting, lack of juicy roles – that often make it difficult for them to duplicate the power of their debuts.

What distinguishes a breakout performance from work by a pro like Meryl Streep is its element of surprise: a breakout role only comes around once and is generally played by an unknown talent who seems to erupt out of nowhere. There's an unpolished, unpredictable and often hyper-realistic quality to the performance.

This year's biggest breakout star is inarguably Gabourey Sidibe, a young woman who had no acting experience prior to her turn as the titular character in Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' By Sapphire. In this harrowing film, Sidibe invests the abused, illiterate, overweight Precious with enough dignity and resilience that she never becomes a victim. As Sidibe is fond of telling interviewers, she was studying psychology at New York's Mercy College when a friend told her about a casting call for Lee Daniels's film. Ditching class to audition, Sidibe displayed such raw talent, she got a callback an hour later. Sidibe now finds herself in the running for best actress.

Even if Sidibe wins the coveted trophy, it's no guarantee she will go on to have a fruitful career. Oscar-night glitter can quickly fade in fickle Hollywood. "You're only as good as your last picture," said Golden Age best actress winner Marie Dressler, but many Oscar-nominated ingenues later find that they're only as good as their first picture. Rookie performers face a myriad of pressures – limited range, typecasting, lack of juicy roles – that often make it difficult for them to duplicate the power of their debuts.

Cambodian actor Haing Ngor, left, smiles after receiving his Oscar for best supporting actor for his role in The Killing Fields. At right is Linda Hunt, who won best supporting actress for her role in The Year of Living Dangerously. (Rob Boren/AFP/Getty Images)

Two of the more memorable breakout performances in Academy history came from non-actors like Sidibe. Haing S. Ngor, a Cambodian physician who was imprisoned in a Khmer Rouge concentration camp in 1975, brought a genuine gravitas to his role as Cambodian refugee Dith Pran in The Killing Fields, which earned him a best supporting actor trophy in 1984. Harold Russell, whose Second World War injury left him with hooks for hands, was a natural fit for the part of a handicapped sailor in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). His performance was so poignant, he became the only actor in Oscar history to win two statues for the same role. Yet both Russell and Ngor had virtually no follow-up roles.

Another one-trick pony was 1993 best supporting actor nominee Jaye Davidson, another unknown who blew audiences' minds when a key plot twist in The Crying Game (1992) revealed that his female character was actually a man. Davidson followed up this breakout triumph with a truly wretched performance as a boy possessed by the spirit of an Egyptian sun god in Stargate — and retired from acting soon after. Davidson hinted at the reason for his short-lived career when he described his Oscar nomination thusly: "It was the role that was nominated, not me. I really think that most of this is a fluke."

After making indelible impressions in such unique first roles, typecasting was inevitable — Ngor was offered bit parts in Vietnam-themed projects; Russell landed TV guest appearances as a handicapped vet; and Davidson sifted through lame scripts aimed at exploiting his bizarre, cross-dressing persona.

This problem can prove particularly damaging for young performers, who are ill-prepared to deal with the disappointments that can follow a killer first role. Actors from Patty Duke to Quinn Cummings to Linda Blair faced grim prospects by the time they reached adolescence. Same with Justin Henry, the youngest-ever supporting Oscar nominee, for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). After wowing viewers with his astonishing ability to cry on cue, Henry learned the hard way that roles all but dry up once you morph from a sweet-faced blond kid into an awkward teen.

Tatum O'Neal holds her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, which she won for her role in Paper Moon, at the 1974 Academy Awards. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

No one could empathize with his plight more than Tatum O'Neal, still the youngest performer to ever win a supporting actress prize, for her star-making role in Paper Moon. O'Neal was so convincing as tough-talking child grifter Addie Loggins, she seemed destined for greatness. Her promise evaporated as she signed on for a string of disappointing movies in the late '70s and grappled publicly with drug addiction. (One of the few Oscar winners to wind up on Dancing with the Stars, she is now reviving her career with a crackling role on the series Rescue Me.)

Marlee Matlin won a best actress Oscar at age 21 for her powerhouse performance as an anguished deaf student in Children of a Lesser God. Sadly, casting agents couldn't quite separate Matlin – who is hearing impaired in real life – from her character, and she was forced to toil away in bit parts before finally finding juicy television work in the late '90s.

The inability to distinguish the performer from the role also plagued Linda Hunt, a gifted actress who had her breakout moment playing a male, mixed-race photographer in The Year of Living Dangerously (1983). With her tiny frame and androgynous appearance, no one in Hollywood knew quite what to do with Hunt, who's spent her post-Oscar career seeking out oddball bit character parts in theatre and film.

Along with Gabourey Sidibe, another breakout performer receiving accolades this year is Katie Jarvis, the star of the British family drama Fish Tank. This scrappy unknown was spotted by a casting agent on an Essex train station platform, and the 18-year-old is now earning British acting prizes for her astonishing debut. Jarvis's performance is the real deal — but will she able to buck the breakout jinx? As with Sidibe, one can only hope that raw talent not only rises to the top but stays there.

Lee Ferguson writes about the arts for CBC News.