Nicholas Hoult

"Nicholas Holt" redirects here. For the football coach, see Nick Holt.

Hoult at the San Diego Comic Con, 2015

Nicholas Caradoc Hoult (born 7 December 1989) is an English actor. Born in Wokingham, Berkshire, he was drawn to acting from a young age. Although Hoult initially wanted to study English, he pursued a career in acting and attended Sylvia Young Theatre School. Having made his screen debut at the age of seven in the 1996 film Intimate Relations, he appeared in such television shows as Magic Grandad and Waking the Dead. Hoult had his breakthrough playing Marcus Brewer in the 2002 comedy drama About a Boy, for which he was nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer.

Hoult received wider recognition for his portrayal of Tony Stonem in the E4 teen drama series Skins. Although he was dismissive of his character on the show, his performance garnered him praise and a nomination for Golden Nymph Award. His transition to adult roles with the 2009 drama A Single Man and the 2010 fantasy adventure film Clash of the Titans was well received; the former earned him a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination. Hoult was then cast as the mutant Beast in Matthew Vaughn's 2011 superhero film X-Men: First Class, a role he reprised in later installments of the series; his second production in the franchise, the $747 million-grossing X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), marked his biggest commercial success.

Hoult's continued association with big-budget productions yielded varying results as seen with the 2013 box office bomb Jack the Giant Slayer and the 2015 blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road. While he became known for his supporting work, Hoult later turned to starring roles mostly in independent films, including three of his 2017 releases, the romantic drama Newness and the biographical films Rebel in the Rye and The Current War where he played J. D. Salinger and Nikola Tesla respectively. He voiced Elliot in Lionhead Studios' 2010 action role-playing game Fable III. Hoult is also a philanthropist who supports numerous charitable organisations.

Early life

Hoult briefly attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School.

Nicholas Caradoc Hoult was born in Wokingham, Berkshire, on 7 January 1989 to Glenis (née Brown), a piano teacher, and Roger Hoult, a retired British Airways pilot. Nicholas' great-aunt was Dame Anna Neagle, a stage and film actress from 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, who are both television actresses. Hoult spent most of his childhood in the family's private residence in Sindlesham, an estate village in the borough of Wokingham. His older siblings showed interest in acting and dancing from an early age, taking classes and attending auditions. He later began accompanying them as he found it interesting as well. He discussed his childhood and the relationship with his siblings in a 2011 interview with The Guardian: "[we were] pretty outdoorsy normal kids running around in the garden and making tree houses [...] it was very normal".

Hoult grew up with his mother and sisters as his brother and father were mostly away for education and work respectively. He said that 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". He practised ballet along with his sisters and was involved in productions of Swan Lake and The Nutcracker with the national ballet. He studied at The Coombes Nursery in Arborfield, Berkshire and the Arborfield Church of England Junior School during his early childhood. Although Hoult initially wanted to attain advanced level certificates in English, Biology, and Psychology, he went on to attend acting school at Sylvia Young Theatre and later the church school at Ranelagh. Hoult played trombone as a child and was also part of the local choir. In a January 2013 episode of the twelfth series of The Graham Norton Show, he revealed that his middle name is Caradoc (pronounced /ka.rɑː'dɔk/), which is Welsh and translates to "The Beloved One".

Career

Early career (1996–2005)

Hoult's acting potential was discovered by the director of a play that starred the former's brother. The director was particularly impressed by the three year Hoult's ability to "concentrate well". He offered him his first acting job in his next theatre production The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Hoult subsequently started attending auditions and was eventually cast in his first feature film role at the age of five in the 1996 drama Intimate Relations. He later variously appeared in television shows such as Casualty, Silent Witness, The Bill and Doctors, among others. Hoult initially treated acting as a hobby rather than a potential career option and recalled, in a March 2009 interview with The Daily Telegraph, that he was not "in love with it"; he said, "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."

Hoult's next feature film appearance came at the age of eleven, when he starred, alongside Hugh Grant, in Chris and Paul Weitz's 2002 comedy-drama film About a Boy. Hoult was initially reluctant to audition for the role as it was a long drawn process and interfered with his schooling. Regardless, he 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, he gets bullied horribly at school". About a Boy became a commercial success grossing over $130 million worldwide and was unanimously praised by film critics. Hoult's portrayal of a lonely schoolboy was well received by commentators; David Thomas, writing for The Daily Telegraph, attributed the film's appeal and success to Hoult's performance. By the time the film was released Hoult had quit his junior school in Arborfield, Berkshire, for the performing arts school Sylvia Young Theatre School, London, a transition that he described as tough. Aged 14, he quit the Sylvia Young Theatre School as students at the institute had to sign with its agency and he still did not want to pursue acting as a profession, and preferred to attend a regular school, which he did at Ranelagh.

Hoult starred as Ralph Compton, a young boy who is forced to deal with the disintegration of his family in Wah-Wah, the 2005 semi-autobiographical directorial debut of British actor Richard E Grant. The film, set in Swaziland during the 1960s, chronicles the end of the British Empire in Africa. Hoult next made his debut in Hollywood with the Nicolas Cage starrer The Weather Man, which released in the same year. Directed by Gore Verbinski, the production featured Cage as a weatherman in the midst of a mid-life crisis and Hoult as his son. The film and Hoult's performance went unnoticed. Both Wah-Wah and The Weather Man performed poorly at the box office.

Skins and West End debut (2006–10)

Hoult was studying in the Sixth Form College Farnborough in 2006 when he was cast in the lead role of the teen-drama Skins. He was initially sceptical of his ability to play the role of Tony Stonem, a manipulative, egocentric anti-hero, and associated more closely to the supporting character of Sid. The show was a breakout success and ran for seven series, but Hoult was only part of the first two; his performance was well received and he garnered widespread attention with the character's growing popularity. Skins went on to win the British Academy of Film and Television Arts' (BAFTA) Philip Audience Award and Hoult too earned accolades including a nomination for the Golden Nymph Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series. Freelance writer and critic Elliott David lauded him for his brilliant performance in a 2016 retrospective review, and wrote that he managed to "maintain the inexplicable core of his character throughout". During his time on the show, Hoult felt overwhelmed by the attention and even considered quitting acting at one point, but eventually decided against it. Instead, he quit school at the end of Skins' first season and chose to focus solely on acting. The show has since been credited for widening his opportunities as an actor, with directors and producers claiming his performance as a factor that drove them to cast him in their respective projects.

Hoult at Santa Barbara International Film Festival, 2009

Hoult briefly appeared as Stefan Fredman in the pilot episode of the British television series Wallander. He later made his West End theatre debut with William Sutcliffe's coming of age play New Boy; the production premiered at the Trafalgar Studios and had record-breaking ticket sales, which was mostly attributed to Hoult's popularity among the viewers of Skins. The play was staged only for a week in March 2009 as Hoult had committed to be a part of the fantasy adventure Clash of the Titans (2010), filming for which was scheduled for the summer later that year. Hoult's performance as a "ferociously bright and articulate but sexually confused sixth-former" received mixed response from critics. While Dominic Cavendish of The Daily Telegraph thought that he was able to persuade the viewers with his performance, Lyn Gardner of The Guardian found him average and highlighted his inability to bring out the "unresolved sexual tension beneath [the] banter". Clash of the Titans whilst being panned by critics was a success at the box office, grossing nearly half billion dollars worldwide.

Hoult next appeared in Tom Ford's directorial debut production A Single Man, after the actor originally cast in the role of Kenny Potter dropped out of the film only about a week before filming was scheduled. Hoult had previously shown interest in the project and had sent a recorded audition tape as well; he was eventually chosen for the role of Kenny, a homosexual college student who helps a college professor, played by Colin Firth, deal with his grief. It was variously described by media outlets as the first adult role for Hoult, who himself described his character as "spontaneous" and somebody who was not simply defined by his sexuality. Playing his first major role as an American, he worked on his accent; in his review for the film, Sukhdev Sandhu of The Daily Telegraph made note of Ford's strange choice to cast British actors as Americans (Hoult and Matthew Goode) and vice versa (Julianne Moore). A Single Man opened to widespread acclaim despite reservations from critical faculties about Ford's direction abilities and also emerged as a box office success. Peter Travers, writing for Rolling Stone, praised Hoult's "beautiful" performance. The film earned him a nomination for BAFTA Rising Star Award at the 2010 ceremony; he eventually lost to Kristen Stewart. He later voiced the character of Elliot in Lionhead Studios' 2010 action role-playing game Fable III.

Commercial success with X-Men and Mad Max (2011–2016)

Hoult was cast as Nux in George Miller's delayed action film Mad Max: Fury Road; the project spent several years in development hell as plans for a fourth film in the Mad Max franchise were met with financial difficulties. Filming was planned for the summer of 2010, but during pre-production in Australia it was delayed indefinitely due to heavy rain. With no other immediate commitments, Hoult began to look for other prospects. He was eventually cast in the role of Hank McCoy/Beast for the X-Men film series owing to his ability to play somebody "gentle with a capability of being fierce". Although earlier reports had suggested that Benjamin Walker was to play the role, Hoult was eventually finalised for the 2011 Matthew Vaughn directed installment X-Men: First Class, a prequel to the franchise's earlier films. Before the filming began, Hoult worked on familiarising himself with his character; he said that he "formulated [his] own version of the Beast" and took inspiration from Kelsey Grammer's performance in the previous three X-Men films as his charm and eloquence was something that he wanted to emulate. He learnt to speak in a dialect similar to Grammer's "but without [it] being an imitation". He also underwent physical training and gained weight to better suit his character. The film, which was widely praised by critics for its script and performances, performed moderately well at the box office collecting a total of about $353 million against a production budget of $160 million. Although it was the lowest ranked production in the entire series in terms of box office numbers, Chris Aronson of 20th Century Fox deemed it "an excellent start to a new chapter of the franchise".

Hoult at the San Diego Comic Con, 2013

Hoult had starring roles in two major studio productions in 2013; the films, both of which were based on prior fictional writings, yielded contrasting results. He first played R, a zombie in Jonathan Levine's romantic comedy Warm Bodies, which was released on February, 1. An adaptation of Isaac Marion's novel of the same name, the film is presented from point of view of the central character, mostly through narration. Levine said that he had difficulties finding the right actor to play R, until he met Hoult. The latter himself was attracted to project—which he described as "much more than a horror movie" owing to the use of multiple pop culture and literary allusions—and even more so to the role which "bowled [me] over". He said that he drew inspiration from Edward Scissorhands (1990) as he thought that the central characters in both share the same travails. To prepare for the role of a zombie, Hoult and the other actors involved with the project practiced with circus performers; he said of the experience: "with the Cirque du Soleil, we would take our shoes off in a dance studio [...] kind of grow out of the wall and make our bodies feel very heavy". The film garnered positive response from critics and audiences alike. His next release, Bryan Singer's fantasy adventure Jack the Giant Slayer failed at the box office and received mixed response from critics. Based on the British fairy tales "Jack the Giant Killer" and "Jack and the Beanstalk", the film had him play the eponymous hero. Hoult's performance was poorly received by such film critics as Mary Pols, Justin Chang and Richard Roeper. While the first of the aforementioned was critical of his "disconcerting" imitation of Hugh Grant, the other two simply dismissed him and his character as "bland" and "boring" respectively.

Hoult then appeared in Jake Paltrow's science fiction film Young Ones, his first release of 2014. Set in a dystopian future with a water scarcity, it had him play Flem Lever, a young man who would go to any lengths to claim the land owned by the film's central character Ernest Holm, played by Michael Shannon. Hoult thought of the role as unlike anything he had done before and said that his questionable choices throughout the film intrigued him. He 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 that although it was tough to shoot in the hot weather conditions, the "beautiful" scenery helped to tell the story better. He and his co-star Elle Fanning said that it also made them more conscious of the environmental concerns. The film had premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was met with mixed response. Commentators highlighted the film's standout scenery, but we're critical of its poor plot. Hoult was deemed as an ill fit with the story’s "stoically retrograde machismo" by Keith Uhlich of The A.V. Club.

Hoult reprised his role as Hank McCoy in the sequel for First Class in Bryan Singer's X-Men: Days Of Future Past, his only other release of 2014. Hoult felt that playing the character was a freeing experience for him as an actor and said that it was "fun to suddenly be able to break loose". He further explained: "when you're wearing the makeup [...] you can perform big [...] you get to have two very different techniques, performances" He also talked about the lengthy make-up procedure in an interview with Shunal Doke of IGN, saying that it could go on for as long as three and a half hours. X-Men: Days of Future Past went on to earn over $747 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in the series (it was later surpassed by Deadpool in 2016) and in Hoult's career.

Mad Max: Fury Road was eventually filmed in 2012 in the Namibian desert. Miller had conceived Nux, a terminally ill slave as a "quasi kamikaze pilot"; Hoult himself said of his character: "he's very enthusiastic and committed and affectionate but also kind of clumsy". He shaved his head and followed a strict diet as his role required him to lose a lot of weight. He also talked about performing the stunts in the film, describing the entire experience as "scary", but favourably compared the stunts crew and Miller's choice to incorporate real action sequences as opposed to doing them on a green screen, saying that it made the performance more believable as one was put in the real situation. Fury Road opened to critical acclaim on 14 May 2015, and grossed over $378 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in the Mad Max franchise; the technical aspects and stunt sequences drew particular praise from film critics and the film was credited for reviving interest in the series. Hoult's performance was praised by such critics as Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph, who praised him for being "fabulously unhinged as [...] a twitchy stowaway on the trip". Daily Express's Stefan Kyriazis singled out Hoult for his "fantastically complex and utterly heartbreaking" performance.

Hoult had three other releases in 2015, all of which were critical failures and rank amongst the worst grossing films of his career. The feature film adaptation of Gillian Flynn's mystery novel Dark Places starring Charlize Theron, his co-star from Fury Road; Owen Harris' dark comedy Kill Your Friends, based on the 2008 novel of the same name; and Equals, a science fiction dystopian romantic drama directed by Drake Doremus co-starring Kristen Stewart. Hoult's performance in the last of the aforementioned was well received by such critics as Peter Travers and Katie Walsh. The former dubbed him and Stewart "quietly devastating" and the latter, writing for Los Angeles Times, felt that the duo was "finely matched both in their androgynous beauty and in their performances of a repressed humanity". Despite doubts about his contract with the franchise, Hoult returned for the 2016 film X-Men: Apocalypse. Upon release, the film went on become the third ranked X-Men film worldwide in terms of box office collections with a total of around $540 million. It was also a top-grossing production overseas.

Transition to biographical and independent films (2017–present)

The delayed action film Collide released in the United States in February 2017 to poor response. The film garnered negative reviews from critics; its box office performance was attributed to poor marketing and multiple delays, which was caused by Relativity Media, the film's production company going bankrupt in 2015. Forbes' Scott Mendelson analysed the film's failure and noted that Hoult did not necessarily have the star power to draw audiences. He also responded negatively to Felicity Jones' casting as a damsel in distress, which, in his opinion, further thwarted the film's chances. He highlighted the misogyny and entitlement in the entertainment industry writing that director Eran Creevy and Hoult would get better offers despite the failure of films like Collideas opposed to the minority group, who are either ignored or stereotyped. Response to his next film, the romance drama Newness was more enthusiastic. The production had it's world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival; it stars Hoult and Laia Costa as a Los Angeles-based couple, who meet through online dating app and begin an open relationship. Drake Doremus, the film's director said that the role was unlike Hoult's previous work: "This is a different side of Nick — a very complex and emotionally mature performance that we haven’t seen yet".

Hoult starred in a series of biographical and historical films in 2017; he said that he would rather play characters that might help him improve as an actor and added 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". he first portrayed American author J.D. Salinger in Danny Strong's Rebel in the Rye, which chronicles Salinger's life from his youth to the World War II era, and the years preceding the publication of his debut novel The Catcher in the Rye. He auditioned for the role as he was really keen on doing the project after reading the script. He was also intriguef by Salinger's life, of which he had little knowledge: "I didn’t know he fought in the second world war and landed on D-Day [...] had intermittent PTSD or that he became interested in Vedanta philosophy and meditated and did yoga". To prepare for the role, he read The Catcher in the Rye and biographies written on Salinger's​ life. Hoult said that the biggest challenge was to get a real understand of who Salinger was as a person as "everyone has an idea of [Salinger] in their mind [...] you’re creating a character that people have very strong feelings about. You can’t prove to be right or wrong through impressions". Rebel in the Rye opened to poor response from film critics. Carson Lund of Slant was largely unimpressed by Hoult's "feeble" performance and his inability to "reinvest the character with the complexities lost in the story’s programmatic telling". RogerEbert.com's Matt Fagerholm wrote that although Hoult was capable of illuminating the insecurities and fixations of his character, he's never "quite believable as Salinger"; he ascribed the failure to the script that left the character's key "motivations frustratingly muddled".

Hoult co-starred with Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon in The Current War; the film is 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 mustache and attended science lessons: "trying to understand electromagnets and dynamos and all those sorts of things". He also lost weight for his role by following a strict diet. Response to The Current War was mixed and Hoult's ​performance was favourably described as a tribute to David Bowie, who had previously played Tesla in The Prestige (2006) by such critics as David Ehrlich of IndieWire. In what was a departure from the biographical dramas, Hoult next starred as an American soldier in Sand Castle, a production that he himself described as very different war film "in terms of the pacing and the emotion [...] very under the surface, that futility-of-war idea." 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". Released on Netflix in April 2017, the film garnered mixed reviews.

Upcoming films

Hoult will be part of an upcoming British-Irish-American animated television mini-series Watership Down, directed by Noam Murro. It is based on the 1972 novel of the same name by Richard Adams and adapted by Tom Bidwell. It will be a four-part serial that will broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom, and will stream internationally on Netflix in 2017. Hoult will be voice one of the lead characters, Fiver. He will also reprise his role as Beast in the 2018 film X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

Personal life and other work

Hoult at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival

While filming X-Men: First Class in 2010, Hoult began dating his co-star Jennifer Lawrence. The couple broke up in 2014. He continues to reside in his parental house in Sindlesham, Wokingham. Besides his family accommodation, he owns a flat in north-west London; he also made an unsuccessful offer to buy a house in the London Borough of Camden in 2012. During his childhood, Hoult played basketball for the Reading, Berkshire-based team Reading Rockets, which played in the English Basketball League. He was later appointed as the ambassador for the club. He also follows Formula One and has attended several Grand Prix events at Montreal, Singapore and Germany. Hoult is represented by United Talent Agency.

Hoult is a philanthropist and supports numerous charities; he has been variously associated with organisations that support children. He was appointed the first NSPCC Young Person Ambassador, for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), helping support the charity's activities aimed at children and young people. Since 2009, he has also been involved with Teenage Cancer Trust. He continues to visit patients supported by the organisation and has helped promote such awareness campaigns associated with the trust as the "Shunburn", a sun safety campaign among others. Hoult designed sweaters for Save the Children and Selfish Mother's Christmas Jumper Day campaign. He encouraged customers to buy the festive collection and support the charitable cause, which he though would bring a "real change to children's lives". He also donated a pair of shoes, which was auctioned by Small Steps Project, a organisation that helps homeless and undernutritioned children. Hoult was inducted into the NSPCC Hall of Fame in 2010, for his contributions towards the cause of fighting child cruelty.

Hoult visited slums in Nairobi, Kenya as a part of a Christian Aid project aimed at providing clean water and sanitation to the residents. During his stay he met the natives and helped in cleaning 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." Hoult also participated in the Rickshaw Run in January 2017, where participants drove an auto rickshaw (tuk tuk) for 3000 km across India inorder to raise funds for Teenage Cancer Trust and World Wide Fund for Nature. He has also been associated with the Jeans for Refugees, a project and fundraising initiative dedicated to helping refugees around the world. He donated a signed pair of jeans to the organisation; the profit earned form the campaign was to be donated to the International Rescue Committee, supporting refugees all over the world.

Filmography and awards

Main article: List of roles and awards of Nicholas Hoult

Selected filmography

• Intimate Relations (1996)
• About a Boy (2002)
• A Single Man (2009)
• X-Men: First Class (2011)
• Warm Bodies (2013)
• X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
• Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
• Rebel in the Rye (2017)

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. He was nominated for the 2010 British Academy Film Awards for Orange Rising Star Award for his role in A Single Man.

External links

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