Nicholas Hoult shares career turning points at Red Sea Film Festival

Nicholas Hoult says his breakout in About a Boy came with an unexpected fear — the fear of becoming another child actor who doesn’t make it into adulthood.

Speaking at an In Conversation With event at the Red Sea International Film Festival, the 36-year-old recalled the warnings he heard early on.

“Everyone [back] then, even as a kid, everyone talks to you about how child actors stop working, their life goes off the rails and [how] it doesn’t work out as adults. You have this kind of fear of what’s to come.”

Hoult described growing up in a musical, performance-loving household and landing his first audition at age five.

Reflecting on About a Boy, he admitted, “Even then I knew I wanted to continue [acting] but I was like there’s a good chance this doesn’t work out,” adding that his parents kept him grounded with “normal school” and no pressure to succeed.

He also spoke warmly about reuniting with Toni Collette two decades after she played his mother in About a Boy. “It was lovely to reunite with her… now I get to know them again as an adult, which is really special.”

Hoult revisited his Skins years, describing Tony Stonem as a “piece of work” and calling the series “one of the wonderful things” that gave him lifelong friends.

On landing Beast in X-Men: First Class, he said the role arrived by chance while Mad Max was delayed. Standing beside Hugh Jackman on Days of Future Past felt surreal: “I was [thinking] this is the guy that I was watching play Wolverine when I was 11-years-old.”

Hoult also praised George Miller’s “creative and intelligent” approach on Fury Road and spoke about choosing Lex Luthor over Superman in James Gunn’s upcoming Superman: “My brain was like, yes, that’s the character you should and need to be playing.”