Welcome to Career Watch, a vocational checkup of top actors and directors, and those who hope to get there. In this edition we take on Nicholas Hoult, who’s doing what he’s always done: owning character roles in film, theater and television.
Bottom Line: Hoult has an enigmatic persona that fits just about any role. The camera is drawn to his deep blue eyes, and you can count on Hoult to deliver a character’s emotional spine. (He’s not one to go overboard.) That’s why this grown-up child actor never falls out of favor. He can handle anything: Marvel superheroics (“X-Men: Days of Future Past,” “First Class,” “Dark Phoenix” and “Apocalypse”), Nic Cage flicks (“The Weatherman” and “Renfield”), movies starring Toni Colette (“About a Boy” and “Juror #2“), action thrillers (“The Order,” “True History of the Kelly Gang,” “Mad Max: Fury Road”), and comedic bodice-rippers (“The Favourite,” “The Great”).
Career Arcs: Hoult first trod the boards when he was three, following in the footsteps of his older siblings. He starred opposite Toni Collette and Hugh Grant at age 11 in “About a Boy” (2002) and landed a role in his first American movie at age 14 opposite Cage in “The Weatherman.” He made his mark at 16 as a tough teen in the TV series “Skins,” followed by Tom Ford’s “A Single Man,” as a vital young man who reminds a grieving Colin Firth that there are reasons to live. That led to Hoult’s shaved-head performance as Knox in George Miller’s arduous Namibia desert shoot, “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
“I found ‘Fury Road’ thrilling because it was so practical and visceral,” Hoult said in a Zoom interview. “I remember sitting in my character Knox’s car and seeing the stunt team give the signal to start the engines, and you hear this cacophony of noise around you, and then you’d go across the desert. You couldn’t hear well what was going on because of the noise of the engines. But then you’d see the camera flash by on the video car. There was an electricity to it. Yes, at times it was a long shoot. I enjoy challenges. I thrive on people banding together to accomplish something that’s difficult.”
Assets: Beyond his self-evident acting skills and tall leading man looks, Hoult’s an experienced veteran with athletic grace. He can go American or English, ride a horse or sling a gun, but he doesn’t burn his audience with formula familiarity. And he never phones it in, no matter how bad the movie. In both well-reviewed “The Order” (Justin Kurzel) and “Juror #2” (Clint Eastwood), he projects potential menace: Hoult keeps you guessing as to what motivates these seemingly decent family men.
He had worked with Justin Kurzel on “The Kelly Gang” so he trusted him on “The Order,” based on true stories of 80s neo-Nazis in the Northwest. He didn’t mind playing a villain opposite FBI agent Jude Law, but sees him as a character worth understanding. “The story feels relevant today,” Hoult said. “To play the character as evil and obvious wouldn’t be appealing. And Bob Mathews is someone who presented all these things to disenfranchised and lonely people. He could target people, put people off enough whereby they wouldn’t understand what they were getting into, perhaps.”
“The Favourite” and “The Great” revealed Hoult’s penchant for sexy comedy. “First of all, Tony McNamara is whip-smart,” said Hoult. “Every day I opened the script, it’s an absolute joy to read and to get to deliver those lines. It was wonderful to have that experience with that character, because then I could take that forward into doing ‘The Great.’”
Some stars don’t like to look weak on screen. Hoult isn’t worried about that. In Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu,” the actor plays the feckless husband of a woman (Lily-Rose Depp) being pursued by a vampire. When he goes to encounter the demon (Bill Skarsgard), he’s terrified. He’s the damsel in distress. “What’s tragic about Nicholas Holt’s character,” Eggers told me, “is that he’s trying, and he thinks he’s going to be the hero, of course. But he can’t be.”
In the movie, Hoult walks along a dirt road in the dark toward the ominous moonlit castle of Count Orlok, getting more terrified by the minute. Suddenly he is swung through the air onto a horse and carriage. The actor started out walking, then stepped onto a board that had been attached to a dolly, which was on a track, kept going forward, and then lifted him up. “That’s a great example of so many things that have to work just right,” said Hoult. “The movie feels easy and flows wonderfully and is beautiful to watch. But there’s so many small elements like that that were actually incredibly difficult to get inch-perfect.”
Awards Attention: So far Hoult has been nominated for Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and Emmys for his tasty scene-chewing role as Emperor Peter III in “The Favourite” writer Tony McNamara’s “The Great,” his well-reviewed three-season Hulu series opposite Elle Fanning as Catherine the Great.
Latest Openings: Hoult had a busy year. After shooting “Nosferatu” in Prague, “it was an intense period,” he said, “because I had a weekend off when I was traveling back from Prague and then flew to Calgary to begin ‘The Order.’ And then I had a weekend off, which wasn’t really a weekend off, because of the ‘Superman’ screen test. And then I flew on the Monday to Savannah to start ‘Juror #2.’ It was amazing to work with those three directors in one year. At the end, I sat down for a minute, and reflected, which I don’t often do. If you could have told me 10, 15 years ago, that I get to work with those three directors in one year? That’s the dream. That’s everything I could have wished for. I’ve grown a lot.”
The character in “Juror #2” is a cipher. “He is hiding everything,” said Hoult, “and he has to somewhat be a mirror for the audience, be someone that they can project themselves onto. For this to work, everyone has to be like, ‘Hang on, what would I do?’ The big moral question of this film keeps you engaged. This predicament is getting worse and worse and there’s no easy way out, obviously.”
Playing opposite Toni Colette was a welcome reunion after “About a Boy.” “Here’s this actress that I respected,” he said, “this person that made me feel so looked after and saved as a kid, and now I’m an adult, we’re both different people, but getting to have this experience together. It was beautiful.”
Next Step: Hoult buzz-shaved his head for the second time, for “Superman” villain Lex Luthor: his son did the honors. Hoult relishes “all of those things physically that make you feel more like the character,” he said. He had a month to prep before the film shot in Atlanta last February. “So many wonderful actors have portrayed that character in so many different films and iterations,” said Hoult. “We’re working from the same source material, but I do feel fortunate with James Gunn directing and writing the script, because he has such an understanding of the world and such a unique voice. He has a great take on it. But it’s daunting taking on a role like that. We’ll see what people think.”
Current Gossip: Hoult shuttles back and forth between L.A. and London. After a four-year romance with his “X-Men” costar Jennifer Lawrence, Hoult is raising two children with partner Bryana Holly.
Career Advice: Hoult is talented and bankable in indie films and TV series, but so far not many studio leading roles have come his way. Hoult is right to keep changing things up. He could use a box office hit, and “Nosferatu” may fit the bill. While he ably carried well-reviewed “Juror #2, Warner Bros. ill-advisedly took the film straight to streaming, amid media protests.
The studio did cast him as villain Lex Luthor in James Gunn’s reboot of “Superman”: the ultimate juicy supporting role. “Maybe I haven’t been pigeonholed because I consciously try and play away from not doing one thing,” he said. “I enjoy acting. I want to continue doing it for a long, long time, hopefully.”
