Nicholas Hoult: Difference between revisions

Nicholas Caradoc Hoult (born 7 December 1989) is an English actor. His

Born and brought up in

Hoult was born in Wokingham, Berkshire, to piano teacher Glenis (née Brown) and British Airways pilot Roger Hoult. In a January 2013 episode of the twelfth series of The Graham Norton Show, Nicholas revealed that his middle name is Caradoc (pronounced /ka.rɑː'dɔk/), a Welsh name that translates to "The Beloved One".^[1]

His paternal^[2] great-aunt was Dame Anna Neagle, a stage and film actor active in the 1930s and 1940s. He has three siblings: an elder brother James, who is a United States-based biology student; and two sisters, Rosanna and Clarista, both of whom are television actors.^[3][4]

Hoult spent most of his childhood at his family's residence in Sindlesham, an estate village in the borough of Wokingham.^[5] His older siblings were interested in acting and dancing from an early age, taking classes and attending auditions. As a child, he began accompanying them and developed his own interest in acting. He discussed his childhood and his relationship with his siblings in a 2011 interview with The Guardian saying, "[we were] pretty outdoorsy normal kids running around in the garden and making tree houses ... it was very normal".^[6]

During Hoult's childhood, his father was regularly working away from home and his brother was away attending school. As a result, he spent most of his time with his mother and sisters; he said being raised by women might have helped him "steer clear of some pitfalls that guys who didn't grow up with women would fall into".

Nicholas' acting potential was discovered by a theatre director during a performance of a play that starred the former's brother. The director was impressed by the three-year-old Nicholas' ability to "concentrate well" and offered him a role in his next theatre production, The Caucasian Chalk Circle.^[10] Hoult began attending auditions and at the age of five was cast in the 1996 drama Intimate Relations; his first feature-film role. He later appeared in the television programmes Casualty, Silent Witness, The Bill, and Doctors, among others. Hoult initially treated acting as a hobby rather than a potential career option; in a March 2009 interview with The Daily Telegraph he said he was not "in love with it ... I just enjoyed it. It was like playing for a football team. When you got a part it was great. And meeting new people. It was an exciting new world."^[10]

Hoult's next feature-film appearance came at the age of eleven alongside Hugh Grant in Chris and Paul Weitz's 2002 comedy-drama film About a Boy.^[11] Hoult was initially reluctant to audition for the role as the casting process was a lengthy one and interfered with his schooling. He nonetheless decided to participate in the early rounds of auditions and was eventually cast in the role of Marcus, a "woolly-hatted, oddball son of a suicidal, hippy-ish single mother, [who] he gets bullied horribly at school".^[12] About a Boy was a commercial success, grossing more than $130 million worldwide and being praised by film critics.^[11][13] Hoult's portrayal of a lonely schoolboy was well received; David Thomas, writing for The Daily Telegraph, attributed the film's appeal and success to Hoult's performance.^[12] By the time the film was released, Hoult had left his junior school in Arborfield and began attending Sylvia Young Theatre School in London. He said the change was difficult; his time there was short and he preferred attending a regular school. He still did not want to pursue acting as a profession and at 14 he left Sylvia Young Theatre School in favour of Ranelagh School, a Berkshire-based Church of England day school.^[10]

Hoult starred in

Hoult briefly appeared as Stefan Fredman in the pilot episode of the British television series

Hoult then appeared in Jake Paltrow's science-fiction film Young Ones (2014). Set in a dystopian future where water is scarce, the film had Hoult play Flem Lever, a young man who is trying to claim the land owned by the film's central character Ernest Holm (Michael Shannon).^[64] Hoult thought the role was unlike any of his previous roles and said his character's questionable choices throughout the film intrigued him. Hoult read novels written by S. E. Hinton to prepare for the role. The film was shot in a deserted location in South Africa; Hoult said filming in the hot weather conditions was difficult but the "beautiful" scenery helped to tell the story better.^[65] He and his co-star Elle Fanning said it also made them more conscious of environmental concerns.^[66] The film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was met with mixed responses.^[65] Commentators highlighted the film's standout scenery but were critical of its plot.^[64] Keith Uhlich of The A.V. Club said Hoult was a poor fit for the story’s "stoically retrograde machismo".^[67]

Hoult reprised his role as Hank McCoy in Bryan Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past, his only other release of 2014. Hoult said playing the character was a freeing experience for him and that it was "fun to suddenly be able to break loose ... when you're wearing the makeup ... you can perform big ... you get to have two very different techniques, performances". He also said the lengthy make-up procedure could last up to three and a half hours.^[68] X-Men: Days of Future Past earned more than $747 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in the series and in Hoult's career at that time.^[69]

In 2015, Hoult had three other releases–the

Hoult starred in a series of biographical and historical films in 2017; he said he preferred playing characters that might help him improve as an actor and that the "actors I look up to started doing their best work in their early 30s and I’ll be hitting that age  ... I’m just trying to learn".

Hoult co-starred with Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon in The Current War, a dramatisation of the feud between electrical pioneers Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, played by Cumberbatch and Shannon respectively. Hoult was cast in the role of Nikola Tesla, for which he grew a moustache and attended science lessons about electromagnetism and dynamos.^[86][92] He lost weight for his role by following a strict diet.^[93] Response to The Current War was mixed; David Ehrlich of IndieWire described Hoult's performance as a tribute to David Bowie, who had previously played Tesla in The Prestige (2006).^[94] In a departure from biographical dramas, Hoult next starred as an American soldier in Sand Castle, a production he described as a very different war film "in terms of the pacing and the emotion ... very under the surface, that futility-of-war idea".^[93] He recalled the filming experience in the Jordanian military bases practising clearing procedures: “we put on these masks, get given these guns, are put inside this pitch-black house ... try and hunt down these bad guys hiding inside. You’re in all the gear ... the adrenaline starts pumping".^[93] Released on Netflix in April 2017, the film garnered mixed reviews.^[95]

Upcoming films

Hoult will appear in an upcoming British-Irish-American animated television mini-series adaptation of

While filming X-Men: First Class in 2010, Hoult began dating his co-star Jennifer Lawrence. The couple broke up in 2014.^[99] Since March 2017, Hoult has been dating model Bryana Holly.^[92] In April 2018, the couple had their first child together.^[100] Hoult lives in a flat in north-west London;^[92] he also made an unsuccessful offer to buy a house in the London Borough of Camden in 2012.^[92][101]

During his childhood, Hoult played basketball for the

Hoult visited slums in Nairobi, Kenya, as a part of a Christian Aid project aimed at providing clean water and sanitation. During his stay he met the natives and helped clean the locality. He said of his experience; "I met great people making the best of the situation ... it is heart-breaking in many ways to see the living conditions".^[112] Hoult also participated in the Rickshaw Run in January 2017, in which participants drove an auto rickshaw (also called a tuk tuk) for 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) across India to raise funds for Teenage Cancer Trust and World Wide Fund for Nature.^[113][114] He has also been associated with Jeans for Refugees, a project and fundraising initiative intended to help refugees around the world.^[115] He donated a signed pair of jeans to the organisation; profits from the campaign were donated to the refugee support agency International Rescue Committee.^[116]

Filmography and awards

Selected filmography

Accolades

For his role in About a Boy, Hoult won the Best Youth Performance at the Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards and earned a nomination for Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer.^[3] He was nominated for the 2010 British Academy Film Awards for Orange Rising Star Award for his role in A Single Man.^[37]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nicholas Hoult.

• Nicholas Hoult at
  IMDb
• About a Boy interview with Hoult