Nicholas Hoult Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

I don't have a process that I stick by,

like a set rule book that I say, All right,

if I'm creating a character,

I'm gonna do this, this, this.

There's so many different inputs that kind of,

then you just kind of see what comes out the other end,

and hopefully it's something that is good.

[upbeat drum music]

About a Boy.

When you're a kid acting, it's more kind of, it's playtime.

I mean, it still is as an adult.

But, you're less kind of going into kind of,

the technical things that you have at your aid as an actor

to kind of disappear into a character.

Luckily with that, I mean obviously the cast in that movie,

Hugh Grant and Toni Collette and Rachel Weisz

and all these people are amazing to work with.

So, you kind of, acting's always that thing

that you're kind of on the same level of anyone else

you're doing the scenes with.

And also the directors Chris and Paul Weitz are amazing

and the writing, so.

That kind of made my job, as it were,

as an 11-year-old, pretty easy.

I mean, I had sung before.

Not on film, and not in front of,

I think it was 600 people in the audience that day.

And not with Hugh Grant.

[Killing Me Softly]

♪ Killing me softly with his song ♪

♪ Killing me softly ♪

Who the hell is that?

♪ With his song ♪

It was daunting.

It was scary.

I remember all the,

everyone was very supportive on that day and encouraging.

And it's acting,

so there's kind of a way of differentiating it.

If it was me going out there to try and sing well,

that would be horrifying.

But luckily, it's meant to be the character singing badly.

It's definitely occasionally something

that people would be like,

Sing 'Killing Me Softly' for a while,

particularly after the movie came out.

And I was like, I don't feel I have to do that.

I don't have to stand here and acapella sing

[chuckles]

'Killing Me Softly' to you.

Thanks for the request.

And Shake Ya Ass, I mean any time anyone sings that,

I'm flattered I guess.

[Shake Ya Ass]

♪ Shake ya ass ♪

♪ Watch yourself ♪

♪ Shake ya ass ♪

Skins.

When I first read Skins, I loved the writing,

but I originally thought I was more suited

to the character of Sid,

and that was something that I felt like,

was more in my repertoire I guess or something.

So, when they said that they wanted me to audition

to play Tony, I was kind of like, Okay, that's not

the character reading the script that I instantly gravitate

to what I think I was right for.

I mean, the thing that's great about acting

is you get to play different characters

and try different genres and different storytelling

and all these things, and that's certainly

what I try and do with each movie or production

or character I play.

But, particularly at that time,

I think growing up being a child actor to kind of,

I mean, I was only 16 at the time

so I was still a kid, but it's kind of,

you still want to appear to be older,

and that was quite a progressive show

at the time and kind of very different

to all the other teen dramas

that had been on up until that point.

Yeah, it was definitely a conscious decision,

and one that luckily paid off,

because there was a lot of talented people involved

and it kind of, I think spoke to that generation.

The people who were creating Skins

wanted it to feel authentic and real,

and that was casting people who were the right age,

and that made, the cast involved in that show

are still some of my best friends.

So, it's kind of this wonderful thing

that we were experiencing that point in our lives

making the show,

but then on screen, we were kind of the right,

had the right kind of dynamics to be,

to be pretending to be doing those things.

I'm just marvelous, Sidney.

Like hell on earth in here.

Glorious.

Yourself?

Uh, yeah, yeah, I'm all right.

Excellent.

Vibrant.

Superb.

So glad to hear it.

I remember doing my first sex scene on that show.

And obviously, that's a scary, weird thing.

It's just odd, it's--

Harry Enfield as well was directing, the British comedian,

who was so well known for his work, and very funny on set,

so he made it kinda easier and more relaxing I guess.

[seductive music]

Looking back, it was, you know, it was kind of odd,

but you kind of, it's part of the process of acting,

and now I've done plenty of those scenes,

and you kind of just get more and more relaxed

and used to doing them, and kind of,

really trying to figure out, I think,

that experience was very much just get it done, get it done,

and then move on to the next scene

and go back to doing the other acting.

And now it's kind of each time one of those scenes

comes up in a production, I'm like, Okay,

what are we learning about the characters,

what are we trying to say about them

by doing this, by showing it?

A Single Man.

Yeah, A Single Man.

It was a fairly fortunate move on my part.

There was another actor involved

and then he couldn't continue the production

so the script got sent my way, and I loved the script,

and admittedly I didn't really know much about Tom Ford

at that time.

I wasn't too savvy on the fashion world.

So I did a tape and sent it across to the States,

and got a phone call kind of the following evening

or something, saying,

Hey, can you jump on a plane and come meet Tom Ford.

He's interested in you for the role.

And I was like, Brilliant.

Obviously I knew Colin Firth and Julianne Moore

and was a big fan of their work.

I thought this was an incredible story to tell,

so I kind of wanted to understand what Tom's motivation was,

and sitting and speaking to him,

he had such a great understanding of the story

and each character involved, and such.

I mean, you just sit with him for five minutes

and you understand how smart he is,

and his attention to detail,

and how creative he is as a person.

That's one of the lovely outcomes of that movie

was building that relationship with Tom

and getting to spend time with him

and then also at the end of the movie,

kind of doing the press tour for that

was around the time that his men's line

I think was kind of launching,

so he gave us some beautiful bespoke suits

and we got to wear those

and it kind of makes you feel incredible to be in them.

And then when we were doing press for the movie,

he asked me to be in a campaign for his eyewear as well,

so we did that.

So yeah, a really great partnership and kind of,

that was kind of, I guess a slight merging

of going into the fashion world for me

and getting a better understanding of that.

And Kenny was kind of a quite mysterious role.

He was something you could kind of,

people could project upon

what their own ideas and feelings were.

Didn't notice you open your mouth once.

I was watching you.

You let us ramble on and on, and then you straighten us out.

You never really tell us everything you know

about something.

Well maybe that's true.

I had fake tan and highlights.

I remember very well being in a hotel in Pasadena

and Colin and I would get our fake tans done in the evening

and normally have a cocktail whilst we had that done,

and then have to ask the hotel to clean the sheets,

because obviously fake tan rubs off a lot on white sheets.

X-Men: First Class.

I mean I grew up watching the cartoon of X-Men

when I was a little kid,

and then the original movies came out when I was,

I don't know, I think like 10-ish, nine,

10, 11, around there?

The opportunity to be a part of those movies, you know,

I don't think superhero movies as such

had suddenly become quite such a ginormous event,

tentpoley type thing that they are now, franchise I guess,

but it was certainly something that I loved the X-Men

and was excited to be a part of,

and with Matthew Vaughn directing I was like,

I loved his work.

The one odd thing I remember about the audition

was Matthew Vaughn asked me to do a couple of takes

like in an American accent as kind of as the character,

as you kind of saw the character,

but then also do a take

doing an impression of Stewie Griffin from Family Guy.

And I'd watched a lot of Family Guy

in my teen years growing up, so I was like,

Okay, I think I've got a pretty good impression

of Stewie Griffin lined up.

[chuckles]

And so I did like a whole version of the take

as Stewie Griffin and sent it off.

So maybe that helped me get the part?

I don't know.

It was just exciting, and again,

that character was something I was like,

Okay, I haven't really done prosthetics work before

and heavy makeup work,

so I was interested to see how that would work.

[tense music]

No, no, no.

No.

And also this Jekyll and Hyde kind of aspect

to this character.

I mean I loved the prosthetics at first.

You know, at first it's hilarious.

You put your, the best makeup and the artists in the world

are making you look like

this completely different person and creature.

It's amazing as an actor to have a completely different face

to then try and act from.

And physicality as well, I've got this muscle suit,

and everything is different.

Obviously there's difficult elements to it.

It's um, it was, you know it started off in the first movie

taking roughly three, four hours to go on,

and then by the last movie we did it was only,

it was down to about two hours to get on,

so it sped up a lot, the process of getting it on.

But it was still kind of fairly hot and claustrophobic

to work in, so that made it tough at times.

But overall, I've got, you know, very funny

behind the scenes videos and photos

and I had a great time kind of trying to inhabit

that character with all that happening

and working with yeah, really talented makeup artists, so.

Yeah, it was a good time.

Warm Bodies.

Yeah, Warm Bodies was something that,

occasionally there's been a few scripts

that I've kind of read or received or ending up being in,

where I've just read it and gone,

that something's clicked inside of me.

And that very much happened with Warm Bodies,

where I was like, Okay, I think I understand

exactly how to do this.

I found the script very funny when I first read it,

and sensitive, and I kind of, I loved the idea

of trying to bring this zombie to life.

And I thought Jonathan Levine was such a great director

and he'd written this brilliant script,

so I was spending time with him and I was like,

It's a challenge.

It's definitely a challenge,

but it's something that I felt like, I was like, I think,

knowing nothing, I still felt like,

I think maybe you can try and pull this off.

And so it was just a fun process of kind of,

developing this sound I guess,

this kind of groaning, guttural voice

of what R would be in his zombie form.

[zombies groaning]

[R] Days passed this way.

Myself and Rob Corddry got to go to zombie school,

where we had a Cirque du Soleil

kind of movement coach come in,

and for a day or two we would,

we would run around like, these offices and car parks,

like, pretending to smell flesh.

And then we'd work on our like,

zombie different paces of movement

and how we reacted to these things.

That was the most difficult part of that movie,

was doing scenes with Rob,

because there'd be scenes where we'd both be sat

at like an airport bar, but just, not saying a thing,

but just improvise, improvise groaning at each other.

But somehow Rob Corddry managed to make improvised groaning

the most hilarious thing in the world.

And like, I'm the worst for giggling on set.

I can't help it.

And the second I start, then I'm like,

it just captures my whole being and I'm like just stuck.

Mad Max: Fury Road

The first X-Men film I'd gained weight

and they'd asked me to kind of get musclier

and those sorts of things.

But yeah, this was George Miller,

talking to him about the character, obviously,

Nux was supposed to be very sick

when you first meet him at the beginning of the movie,

so he asked me to lose weight, he wanted, um,

and obviously, they're living in also

a post-apocalyptic world,

where he wanted me to look sick and malnourished

and all those things.

So that was something where, yeah,

for a couple months or however long it was before shooting,

I'd just run and jump rope and not eat very much.

And I think I managed to lose 20 pounds for that film.

Which now if I look back and see photos,

I'm like, I didn't notice at the time,

but if I look back and see photos now I'm like,

Wow, yeah, I was very skinny for that.

That film came about

with a really brilliant audition process

that was kind of the first time,

I didn't really particularly go to drama school so,

suddenly we're kind of doing all these acting games

inside of an audition of observation and things that,

it went on for four hours.

And I walked out the audition and I was like,

Well that's unlike any other audition I've ever been in.

But I loved the process of doing it and so,

regardless of whether I get the role or not,

I'm excited about what that was

and the opportunity to work with George in that.

And then yeah, the script for that was I guess,

I guess it was like a 300-page comic book, almost,

with very little dialogue, but each frame of the movie

pretty much storyboarded kind of.

If you hold them up now against the movie that's there,

it's pretty much shot for shot.

George had kind of planned everything out

exactly as he'd seen it in his incredible imagination.

And Nux was, he was a lot of, he was a lot of fun to play,

'cause he was a puppy dog,

and he had this great character arc

of change throughout the story, and beliefs,

and his relationships with the other characters.

Feels like hope.

[Keeper of the Seeds] I like this plan.

We can start again!

And also that environment, being in the desert,

surrounded by all these engines,

it all really happening around you, just, you know,

made for quite an electrifying atmosphere and experience.

Immortan Joe!

[engine revs]

He looked at me!

He looked right at me!

He looked at your blood bag!

He turned his head!

He looked me straight in the eye!

I would get chills on my arms whenever I'd hear it,

they'd kind of give this signal

to start everyone's engines up

before we'd take off across the desert to start a take.

And when you hear like, all these V-8's and V-12's and bikes

and flamethrowers and everything kind of starting off,

and there was a great kind of camaraderie

between everyone playing all those war boys as well.

There would be screaming and shouting and kind of this real,

it was, it was kind of a [sighs]

I mean, cult-like energy or something

that was feverish to those characters, you know.

So it was just feeding on that I guess.

Tolkien

I was a fan of his work growing up.

I got given The Hobbit to read on the set of About a Boy,

by Chris and Paul, the directors,

and then the films came out not long after that

and I was obsessed with the films, I played the card game,

so it was something that was really ingrained in me,

the worlds that he had created.

But reading the script,

I realized that I knew very little about the man behind it.

So I was like, This is an incredible life he lived.

A man's story behind these stories.

Well, really?

Well, if Tolkien is betraying the brotherhood with a blank,

I'm going to show you something utterly degenerate.

[Friend] [laughs] This cannot be good!

It's intimidating playing, playing real people,

because, I mean, it's different I suppose,

if you were playing someone from the modern era

who's very well known and everyone has kind of,

seen on TV or whatever it is,

then you kind of have to do an impression, to a degree.

With Tolkien, it was kind of one of those where,

yeah, there's videos of him later in life, but,

there's photos of him when he's younger,

but there's no recordings or videos,

so it's kind of one of those where,

that gave me a slight sense of relief.

And also talking to other actors about it, they were like,

they were like, Don't worry about doing an impression,

because nobody knows what exactly this character

or person was like in that era, so.

You think it was Michael Shannon said,

when I was doing a film with him,

he said something along the lines of, you know,

he's not trying to impersonate the person,

he's kind of playing a ghost of them.

And I think that's kind of the sense

I was going for with Tolkien.

It was in essence just capturing the man in that era

of his life and what he was about

and what meant a lot to him,

and that was his passion for language and his friends

and his loneliness and his escapism and his, yeah,

his imagination.

So yeah, I thought it was a beautiful script, and obviously,

intimidating to take on playing a real person,

particularly someone you're a fan of, but, um,

yeah I don't know.

If I read scripts and I think the roles are easy to play,

then they're probably not interesting and then,

then that's not something that I'd want to go and do,

because it's not gonna push me.

The Favourite

As I'm getting older and the more work I do,

I do love being able to transform fully

through costume and makeup.

And it really gives me a sense of the character,

but also that world that I'm stepping into

and kind of frees me from any semblance of myself,

inside my head, when I'm doing it.

So yeah, the costumes for Harley were incredible.

And working with Sandy and the first time trying on,

you know, she gave my character these huge high heels,

which I've never really, I don't think too much,

walked in high heels before,

so that was something where I suddenly,

it changes how you walk,

and then you're kind of having to practice

kind of gliding around in these heels,

as opposed to stomping around and twisting an ankle or so.

All those things go into it,

and then kind of the jewelry, and the cane,

and um, Nadia Stacey, the hair and makeup designer

giving me these fantastic wigs

that you just kind of have to balance on top of your head,

and it's just all these things that kind of

just gradually build up and add up to kind of

becoming a very subtle, small character.

Horatio is a prize worth stealing.

He does not leave my side.

Keep him away from me or I will pull his liver out

and eat it with a cornichon.

Oh! Charming.

The idea of working with Yorgos, who, you know,

is such a singular voice in movie-making at the moment,

I think.

Watching his films you kind of never quite know

the turn they're gonna take,

or how they're gonna make you feel.

This guy, he's just, yeah, a brilliant filmmaker.

So kind of handing over to his process,

which again, was very different, that was,

that was a two-week audition process,

I mean, two-week rehearsal process, not audition.

That would've been a long time to audition.

Two weeks rehearsal with the rest of the cast.

And kind of, I would say, probably actually

the most similar experience I've had to Mad Max,

where we would play these games to kind of,

where we'd be dancing and then we'd be doing the scenes,

but we'd be doing them

whilst we had to do these physical tasks at the same time,

and all of this stuff

that you kind of don't fully understand what the outcome

or what the process is trying to achieve at the time.

But then you see it up on screen and you kind of go,

Oh, okay, wow, this is,

he's kind of put us all on a rhythm and pace

and understanding of what this is, what he is creating.

It's very rare as an actor

that you're kind of put into a room and everyone's like,

Okay, now you're gonna dance, now you're gonna do this,

now hold hands and get into the biggest tangle

you possibly can and then someone's gotta try and free you

and all these things, you're like,

We're not sure exactly.

But it completely takes away your ego and kind of

puts you in this wonderful place of playfulness,

and gives you freedom to have fun and fail and enjoy it.

Enjoy the process.

And The Great.

It's written by Tony McNamara,

who wrote The Favourite as well,

so it's very much similar to that in tone.

It's kind of, that kind of dramatic,

comedic twist on a period drama.

This is science!

Enjoy.

[crowd gasps]

[dog yelps]

And Peter is someone who, uh,

he's a stream of consciousness,

he's, you know, he's an emperor of Russia

in a time where no one's really saying no to him,

it's kind of this microscopic view

of the world at that point I guess,

where everyone in the court is trying to manipulate him

for their benefit.

And he's kinda stuck in the middle,

doesn't really want to be a leader.

He's kind of walking in the footsteps or the shadow

of his father before him.

His mum definitely gave him some psychological scarring,

so he's a little bit twisted from that.

And he's, yeah, he's obnoxious, he's rude,

he's sometimes endearing, he's a child, basically.

But a very, very fun character to play.

I haven't done a series since Skins,

so to get to play a character over, you know, 10 hours is,

is a lot of fun,

because then you can really kind of embed yourself in them,

kind of get to grips with them, understand them but then,

completely reverse and change and evolve them throughout,

throughout the process of the filming.