If there’s one person who has a lot to celebrate this year, it’s Nicholas Hoult. The actor has had one of his biggest years yet, starring in three major films with release dates in November and December: Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu, Justin Kurzel’s The Order, and Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2.
“It kind of makes sense in some ways that they were all coming out at one time, because it feels like a chapter of life that’s all combined in a bit of a blur,” Hoult, who filmed all three consecutively in 2023, tells Little Gold Men.
About a Boy, Hoult has proven himself an agile actor who can lead charming, funny period pieces like the Hulu show The Great and the film The Favourite; genre-bending movies like the zombie rom-com Warm Bodies and the vampire comedy Renfield; and superhero fare like the X-Men films, along with more dramatic projects like those three films this year.
In Nosferatu, which is hitting theaters on Christmas Day, Hoult plays a man and newlywed whose wife (Lily-Rose Depp) has a dark connection to a monster that’s infatuated with her. Hoult attempts to support his new family by trying to sell an estate to a mysterious figure, only to be pulled into a dark and terrifying situation. In The Order, which came out on December 6, Hoult portrays the real-life white supremacist group leader Bob Mathews, who is being hunted by the FBI. And finally, in Juror #2, he plays a recovering alcoholic who finds himself on a jury and soon realizes that he might actually have been the one who caused the death at the center of the trial.
Hoult, who will next play Lex Luthor in James Gunn’s Superman, spoke to Little Gold Men (listen below) about the stark differences between those films’ three directors, what he loves most about horror, and if he’d let his own kids follow in his footsteps as child actors.
Vanity Fair: Did you have time between filming these three projects?
Nicholas Hoult: No, they were very close together.We shot Nosferatu in Prague at the beginning of last year, and then I flew on, like, a Saturday back home, and then on Monday I had to fly to Calgary, and we started shooting The Order on the Wednesday. I had a day of rehearsal and stuff and prep and fittings, and then I started shooting pretty much immediately. Then finished that, and I came back to LA for a screen test for Superman that weekend and then flew to Savannah. On the Monday, prepped and rehearsed and did fittings, and then we started shooting Juror #2 on the Wednesday.
Is it hard for you to jump from one character to the next?
The biggest jump was working with the three different directors because they vary so much in their approach. And obviously the characters are so different, so it was kind of this thing where it would overlap a little bit: At the end of shooting Nosferatu, I’d be prepping The Order and starting to read about that and prepare mentally for that character. I’d be in my trailer at lunch on Nosferatu, but I’d be working on the accent for Bob Mathews and sending Justin Kurzel voice notes of him talking.
With Nosferatu, what kind of homework did Robert Eggers give you?
He sent quite a few movies that he wanted us to watch: Angels & Insects for Mark Rylance’s performance in that. There were a few Bergman movies—Cries and Whispers; The Devil’s Eye was one of his movies. And the third part of The Night—that was a great movie. And then it was understanding the world and his process for shooting and how he works, which, first of all, he wrote a very beautiful script that contained so much detail, in terms of the world we were going into visually, how it would sound, and the language that the characters would use being era-specific. Rob has such knowledge of the historical accuracies of that era.
Getting the tone right with horror can be tough—to make sure it’s scary and not cheesy. What was your approach to that aspect?
In Rob’s world, everything’s rooted in history and authenticity. That makes it simpler. Even though I don’t fully see this as a horror movie in some ways—I see it as this romantic fairy tale; obviously it is a scary film. It’s funny, someone the other day was like, “Why did you get in the carriage?” That moment in horror movies where it’s like, “Don’t go back in the house, don’t do that!” It’s easy to spot those moments as an audience member. So I think those are the things you’re aware of in some regards. And I think that’s, again, what’s beautiful about how Rob tells these stories. My character is very aware, obviously, that he’s perhaps in a situation that isn’t good, but he’s still kind of trying to keep face and be polite. There’s an element of trying to make it understandable why you’d stay in those moments. Playing fear is something I hadn’t done at this level. I don’t think it’s something that I’ve ever maybe fully experienced in life. I’ve had lots of dread.
Are you a fan of this genre of film?
I’m not a fan of, like, pop-y horror that would veer more towards slashers. I like tense, I like eerie, and I like things that feel like they’re creating an atmosphere. But I’m kind of a big scaredy cat, I guess, so it’s like, it hurts my heart a little bit to be too scared.
Clint Eastwood has a reputation for being fast, doing only one or two takes. Did you enjoy that type of shoot?
There are definitely moments where you’re like, Did we get it? Did I do enough? But then there’s also a moment where you look over and you go, Well, it’s Clint Eastwood. If he says it’s good, then move on. He’s been in the path of cinema for so long and given so many great performances, and you learn to trust in a different way. There’s an element of taking away that tendency to try and push things too much. With his movies, a lot of the time he’s able to be very objective about his viewpoint, and you then decide how you feel about it. Also, even just talking to him about acting, I’d be like, I’m sitting next to Clint East and I’m gonna ask him how he acts. He said that it’s an emotional art form. You don’t think too much; you do.
Next year you’ll be seen as Lex Luthor in James Gunn’s Superman. I read that Gunn said you met and talked about how to create a different Lex. How is he different?
James has got such a distinct voice in his filmmaking, which I love and I feel is so unique to him, and that’s in the script. I loved initially reading that script, and the tone of it, the feel of it, the drama of it, the hope of it, the darkness, the humor. Every element of that world that he’s creating feels special. It’s the same with how he’s portraying Lex in the script. He’s a multifaceted, dimensional character on the page.
These roles are all quite dramatic, but you’ve done such great comedy in projects like The Great and The Favourite. What do you enjoy about working in that tone?
I love comedy. I enjoy trying to sometimes play characters that people on first look or read or instinct would be like, I don’t like that. And then down the road, they kind of go, Oh, there’s more, there’s elements to it. I actually do enjoy it. And the humor is a big part of that, I think.
Starting out so young as an actor, was there a moment when you had to really commit to this path?
Leaving school. We finished the first season of Skins, and then I went back to school. I was 16, turning 17, and I found out we were going to do a second season of the show, and I found out I was going to do a BBC drama called Coming Down the Mountain. I realized that those two things would kind of take me out of school for the following six months, or whatever, and I thought, I can try maybe to keep balancing both a little bit, but…do you go for it? And it was kind of weird not to have that safety net to fall back on, of being technically still in school.
You have two sons, and they can’t be that far away from the age you were when you started acting. Would you be open if acting is something they also want to pursue?
That is a thought I have sometimes, because yeah, [my older son] is older than when I started acting. I’m like, “Dude, get to work!” [Laughs] No, it’s tricky. When you’re in the game, you know the wonderful highs of it and all the brilliant things about it, and you also see the difficult times of it, but I think that’s probably in any career. I think if it’s something that they wanted to pursue and they were passionate about, then great. But it’s also not something I’m going to encourage. I guess that’s my thing as a parent, is to try and show them as much of the world and things as possible so that they can then kind of figure out where they want to fit into it.
Listen to Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast now.
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