Nicholas Hoult has spoken about his fear of succumbing to the fate of child actors following his breakout role in Hugh Grant’s 2002 comedy-drama. About a boyrevealing that “everyone [back] then, even as a kid, everyone talks to you about how child actors stop working, their lives go off the rails and [how] It doesn’t work as adults. You have this kind of fear of what’s going to happen.
The 36-year-old British actor reflected on his almost three-decade career as a mainstream star during an “In Conversation With” panel at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah on Monday.
Hoult began the talk by detailing his childhood, revealing that he lived in a family that loved musical theater and acting. He briefly spoke about his first audition at age 5 for Philip Goodhew’s 1996 film. Intimate relationships then spoke about his time working on Paul and Chris Weitz About a boy at the age of 11. After admitting his fears about succeeding in the business despite receiving good reviews for his performance in the Nick Horby adaptation, Hoult said it was being talked about around him at the time and he was aware of the failure some child actors had played in his mind. “Even then, I knew I wanted to continue [acting] but I was like there’s a good chance it’s not going to work out,” he said before adding, “Luckily my parents and my family were great in the sense that they sent me to a regular school and kept my life as regular as possible, so there was never like this pressure to succeed.
In About a boyHoult starred alongside Toni Collette, the Australian actress who played her character’s mother. Hoult noted the “special” nature of meeting Collette as a child and working with her again twenty years later. “She played the role of my mother in [About a Boy]then we made a film two years ago called Juror #2directed by Clint Eastwood. It was nice to see her again. These people who have known me since I was a child, but now I am a completely different person. Now I get to know them again as an adult, which is really special.
The discussion then continued into Hoult’s time on the groundbreaking British teen television series. Skinsthe series that launched the careers of a dizzying number of now-established actors, including Daniel Kaluuya, Dev Patel, Jack O’Connell, Hannah Murray, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Kaya Scodelario and Joe Dempsie. Hoult had just missed Kaluuya at the Red Sea Film Festival by a few days and remarked that “one of the wonderful things about Skins is that I have made some of my best friends for life through this show.
Describing his Skins character Tony Stonem as a “work of art”, Hoult reflected fondly on his time working on the series. “We were all 16 or 17 and living away from home for the first time in Bristol. We grew up together. No one expected the show to take off like it did. It was the first drama made for [the Channel 4 youth orientated channel E4]. The script was great, it was a good team but no one expected it [be so big]. What was unique was that we all went there with no expectations, we were just having fun.
During his time in franchise cinema, Hoult reveals the quirk of fate that led him to land the role of Beast in Matthew Vaughn’s hit 2011 film. X-Men: First Class. “One of the things that led to [playing Beast] was Tom Ford’s first film A single man. After that I was chosen Mad Maxbut we had to delay filming because we were supposed to film in Australia but we had to move it to Namibia. So I called my agents and told them I needed a job. And they said there was interest in you playing Beast in X-Men. I had to audition for it in Australia the next day, and I jumped on the plane for a screen test and everything went well.
Reminding once again how young he is despite his seemingly veteran status as a mainstream star, Hoult said he grew up watching the X-Men movies and I loved comic books. He shared a particularly “crazy” moment for him on the 2014 set. X-Men: Days of Future Past. “I was in the hallway at Cerebro with James McAvoy as Xavier, and then I looked over and it was Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. [standing there]. I was [thinking] he’s the guy that I watched play Wolverine when I was 11 and now I’m standing next to him and you know, it was really like an out of body experience, kind of like tripping. It was really weird, it was like ‘oh, I’m reliving my childhood, but in real time.’
He was asked if he now feels famous and getting attention from fans after starring in a huge franchise like X-MenHoult joked that “for those [films] I was mostly covered in blue fur. So it wasn’t like walking down the street and people were like, “There’s this guy!” But comic book fans are truly supportive, caring and passionate.
Let’s move on to her acclaimed performance in George Miller’s 2015 masterpiece Mad Max: Road to FuryHoult described working on the project as “the strangest experience, right from the audition.” He said his audition lasted four hours and that he and his scene partner filmed a scene in which they played observation games, performed repetitive tasks and physical activities. “It was like acting training and I left the audition thinking that even if I don’t get this movie, it was one of the best experiences I’ve had as an actor.”
Hoult described Miller as “so creative and intelligent” and reflected on the deafening Fury Road film in Namibia. “[A lot of it was practical] so we couldn’t hear anything. They would give the signal to start the engines and the vehicles and for 20 or 30 minutes we would drive through the desert filming and sometimes you would see a camera go by like on another truck or something and you would just do scenes, not really hearing them and wondering what was going on.
He added: “George has such a wonderful vision. There was no script, it was like a comic book he had… A week or two into filming I was completely in awe of the whole experience and I said to George, ‘you’ve wanted to make this film for 17 years, how do you feel now that you’re here?’ And he said: “It’s very special to be here but at the same time [I can’t] let yourself be carried away by my love for the project. People who go to the theater [to watch this] in two years they will not come with this investment in history [that I have]you still have to create that for them. What I thought was really smart [thing to say].”
On his recent work on James Gunn SupermanHoult initially talked about auditioning to play Man of Steel, but upon reading the script he realized he really saw himself playing Lex Luthor instead. “The first time I read the script, I remember reading the Lex scenes and thinking they were interesting. ‘I might actually be better than Superman,’ but I was like, well, don’t tell that to anyone now while you’re auditioning for Superman. [laughs].”
“My brain was like, yes, that’s the character [Lex] you should and must play because there are just moments in the dialogue and the storyline where I thought it was really delicious. A man like this is definitely the villain of this story, but at the same time, there’s this thing where if you unpack things, you can piece together what his motivations are and see that there’s a different angle to it. This might make sense, although [Lex] is misguided and his approach is horrible, it’s terrible.
Hoult said he loved working with Gunn on Supermansaying “I really trusted him. We went through rehearsals and he was like ‘this isn’t working, let’s try this, let’s do that,’ and so it was exploratory in the sense of developing the character together.” The actor revealed that his research for the film included Brian Azzarello’s comic book series. Lex Luthor: Man of Steelas well as watching the original Christopher Reeves Superman films and the recent Reeves documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. He added that he was excited to play Lex because he was following in the footsteps of Gene Hackman, one of his favorite actors of all time.
Later, during a question-and-answer session with the audience, Hoult was asked which director he would like to work with. He said he wanted to work with Sean Baker, president of the Red Sea Film Festival competition jury. “I think it’s a wonderful [filmmaker], Florida Project, Red rocketI think he makes really special films. Hoult also cited Quentin Tarantino and joked that he “wouldn’t say no” to working with fellow Brit Christopher Nolan.
Hoult was also asked if he would consider directing, and he made it clear that he was not interested at the moment, as he knew the job of directing was “extremely difficult.” But he admitted that he vaguely imagined that he might be able to tell a certain story in his own way, but for now he wanted to concentrate on acting.
