The Untold Truth Of Nicholas Hoult

You might have first seen Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy, the mutant called Beast in the "X-Men" films, or maybe you remember him for his time starring in the teen drama "Skins." Wherever you first got acquainted with him, though, you've probably witnessed firsthand his rise from a young budding actor to an accomplished leading man. 

Getting his start as a child actor in England, Nicholas Hoult had his career-altering performance in the 2003 Hugh Grant drama "About a Boy." Since then, he's gone from indie movies to studio blockbusters, from superhero adventures to period pieces and eccentric comedies, and he's not slowing down. In the next few years, he'll be seen in a remake of the 1922 vampire classic "Nosferatu" from director Robert Eggers, he'll voice Jon in "Garfield," and he'll take on the coveted role of Lex Luthor in James Gunn's "Superman: Legacy."

Despite his superstardom, though, Hoult often seems like a seriously private person, who does his best to live as far from the public as he can manage. And while that may frustrate some fans, it does give us the added benefit of being able to reveal to our readers some lesser-known facts about the "X-Men" and "Superman" star.

Nicholas Hoult was working in front of cameras when he was just seven years old, and he was already an accomplished thespian with a decent filmography by the time he was a teenager. In 2003, just a year after his role in "About a Boy," he appeared in an episode of the short-lived series "Keen Eddie" starring Mark Valley and Sienna Miller. While shooting a scene, the actor had a near-death experience with a speeding bus that almost ended his career — and his life.

"It was on a TV show where my character was meant to be bullied," Hoult told the hosts of the daytime talk show "Live with Kelly and Ryan."  The scene involved Hoult being dragged out of his room in the middle of the night in his underwear and tied to a chair. That was probably uncomfortable enough, but then he was supposed to be nearly hit by a speeding city bus. "This double-decker Routemaster bus was meant to come towards me and stop, but [during] one take it didn't stop ... So I stuck my foot out and it broke through the glass and I, like, pendulumed and swung off and was just left hanging there, like hitting against this bus."

Thankfully nobody was hurt — and nobody sued — but there was one silver lining for the young actor. "I got to go home early," he said with an air of victory.

A lot has been made of the term "nepo baby" in recent years, with some actors earning criticism for the benefit they see hailing from a family of legendary actors. While Hoult didn't exactly see any nepotism when he broke into Hollywood, with neither of his parents being performers, he's not the only actor in his family. His mother and father met while in the air during a flight to Tel Aviv — his father was a pilot and his mother a cabin attendant for British Airways – and eventually they had four children, all of whom pursued acting at some point.

His sister Rosanna Hoult had small roles in several films including "The Lobster" and "Captain America: First Avenger," with her last acting credit in 2018. Nicholas' other sister Clarista, meanwhile, got her start back in 1997 and appeared in episodes of British TV shows like "The Bill" and "Midsomer Murders" in the early 2000s, before bowing out the same year as her sister. 

As time went on, however, all three of his siblings left the stage behind them to follow different careers. Nicholas' brother is reportedly now a chemist and one of his sisters is a teacher, while the other went behind the camera to become an assistant director. But Hoult isn't the first member of his family to gain attention on the stage. Decades before, his great-aunt Dame Anna Neagle earned fame in her native UK during the post-war years.

Despite his parents working on a plane, Hoult found himself in a family of performers, but acting wasn't his first passion. His other interests in his youth saw him performing on a very different kind of stage — as a ballet dancer. And it was no mere childhood hobby, because he had quite the budding career as a dancer, and nearly went pro. He even performed with high-profile troupes in regional productions, as he revealed in an interview with the Guardian in 2007 while he was starring in the British drama "Skins."

"I was in Swan Lake the ballet and also the Nutcracker with the National Ballet," he said, recounting his early years as a dancer. Though he loved doing it, he admits it was nothing like what he does on screen now. "It was the opposite of 'Skins.'" According to another interview with the same outlet more than a decade later, Hoult admits that he got started doing ballet after he tagged along with his sister to one of her classes. "I just ended up doing it," he recounted in 2007. "I just got on stage and it was a real kick doing ballet before a live audience." 

Many actors in Hollywood struggle with fame and fortune. And while Hoult has been resilient enough not to let it get to his head or cause him too many personal problems, it hasn't always been easy for him. When he first gained major attention on "Skins," Hoult wasn't fond of his newfound fame, with the probing eyes of paparazzi and the nosy interviewers now a normal part of his life.

"For a moment it was a different level of fame –- it was a bit scary," he told the Guardian. "I didn't like it. It just makes you feel like you can't mooch around." In a separate interview in 2011, around the release of "X-Men: First Class," Hoult described in more detail the problems he faced being a TV star. He talked about the panic he felt picking up his sister from school as his fans began to recognize him in public, asking for autographs and photos. The pressure even made him consider quitting acting altogether.

After moving to movies, however, things began to change. "TV is odd because people feel they know you because you're in their houses once a week. Somehow, if they go to the cinema, it's a different mindset. Luckily ... in most of 'X-Men' I'm blue and furry, so very unrecognizable."

Every actor has regrets, particularly when it comes to their projects. While Hoult has had his share of stinkers on the silver screen — "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" and "Clash of the Titans" come to mind — Hoult might look back with more regret on the films he didn't do. That's because a few of them went on to become all-time classics. And in the last few years, he's had a string of bad luck in that regard.

According to the actor himself, he auditioned for the role of Bruce Wayne in the gritty 2022 reboot "The Batman," eventually losing out to fellow heartthrob Robert Pattinson. Around the same time, Hoult tried out for a part in "Top Gun: Maverick" alongside Tom Cruise, screen-testing with members of the cast, but he didn't make the cut. Still, Cruise must have been impressed, because not long after, Hoult was contacted directly by the A-lister, and was asked if he was interested in a part in his next film.

"I got the call from Tom Cruise: 'Hey, how about 'Mission: Impossible?,'" he told the Guardian in 2023. Hoult accepted the gig and was officially onboard, but later had to drop out because of commitments to the Hulu period drama "The Great," which he starred in alongside Elle Fanning.

Nicholas Hoult starred in "Mad Max: Fury Road" in 2015 as the driver of a rude, crude, racing machine in the post-apocalypse. But it certainly wasn't the first time he'd fancied himself something of a racer. As chronicled by Vanity Fair in 2022, Hoult participated in a four-part Corso Pilota driver-training course where he raced on tracks across the United States. But the highlight of the action was when he had the chance to step on the gas pedal of a Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo. "I mean, I couldn't even figure out how to turn it on at first," Hoult said. "But, even going back before starting it, just getting in and out. I'm not a small person. And I was looking at the car, and there was a roll cage and everything. And I was, like, I'm not sure how to get in and out of this."

Though completely inexperienced, he takes the art of racing rather seriously. "I want to do better. I want to get better lap times. I want to get that corner right. I want to make sure that I can control the car in the way that I should, and feel relaxed," he said. "But then I remember, this is a dream coming true, and [I should] enjoy it."

Nicholas Hoult is never one to shy away from a challenge, yet there was one time he nearly refused to film a scripted scene. That came in an episode of Hulu's "The Great," where he was required to be completely naked, and he wasn't comfortable with it. "I remember reading the script and saying, 'Aaaaargh, Tony [McNamara, the show's creator], I'm not sure about this one,'" he said in 2021 in another piece for the Guardian. "Because that hallway is long and busy; the hallways are where people hang out and mingle in the palace."

As Hoult tells it, he wasn't thrilled with the idea of so many onlookers during his nude scene and asked that the crowd be reduced, attempting to negotiate how many people would see him naked. The show's creator eventually convinced him, however, to perform the scene as written. "You have to switch off that part of your brain that's saying, 'I don't want to walk down a corridor naked.' You have to go: 'All right. I'm Peter. And I feel so confident, and I'm so happy and enlightened, that I'm going to walk down this corridor naked."

It wasn't the first time that such a scene caused him apprehension, because back while filming "Skins," a racy bedroom scene gave him pause, too. "I remember reading the scene when [my character] Tony gets together with Maxxie and I thought, 'Maybe this is taking it a bit far,'" he told Elle in 2014.

One look at Nicholas Hoult and it's not hard to see why Hollywood starlet Jennifer Lawrence fell for him while filming "X-Men: First Class." But it might not have been an easy courtship for her, because as the actor revealed to the Guardian, he's often had the reputation for being unapproachable. "Supposedly I'm impossible to talk to," he told the outlet in 2011. 

From what Hoult has heard, many find him challenging, but it's certainly not his fault. "But it's honestly not me being difficult. Sometimes you just don't have a lot to say ... Can you not just say ... that I was lighthearted and amusing and witty?" But being quiet and closed off may rub some the wrong way, it can sometimes make doing press for his projects an uphill battle. "I think interviews can be fine," he said. "It's just there's this terrible fear of coming off wrongly or saying something that gets taken out of context." 

Over the years, though, Hoult seems to have adjusted, and now comes across as likable and open, even if he's not the most public star.

Though Nicholas Hoult considered quitting the acting game after finding fame on "Skins," he stuck with it and eventually became an A-list leading man. But years earlier, after his first big movie, "About a Boy" with Hugh Grant, he may have wondered if he had what it took to make acting his full-time career. Even after the film was a hit, Hoult decided to attend theater school and sharpen his skills.

In the aftermath of the film's release, Hoult enrolled in the Sylvia Young theater school as a teenager. In addition to acting lessons, the school also put him through the ringer with singing and dancing — which he claims he wasn't very good at, despite his ballet background. Before long, Hoult withdrew, realizing he already had what he needed, and the added classes weren't really what he was looking for. Instead, he returned to secondary school.

Eventually, though, it wasn't the positive reviews he received from his performances that convinced him to continue acting, but the realization that he loved it. "It wasn't that formalized training wouldn't work, he told the Guardian. "But at the same time, some of the best actors I've worked with are very instinctive and, for me, the more fun I'm having, the more playful I am, the more I feel I'm probably in the right zone."

Following a small role in the Rupert Graves film "Intimate Relations," Nicholas Hoult made his theatrical starring debut in "About a Boy." The film cast him as Marcus Brewer, a shy young outcast who needs a little extra support, and is mentored by the emotionally stunted Will Freeman (Hugh Grant). Paralleling the fictional events of the movie, Grant became something of a mentor to Hoult, on the set and off. Grant gifted Hoult golf lessons along with a set of clubs, and during production, Hoult learned a lot about the craft of acting.

"[Hugh Grant] set a good example by being so professional," he told Elle. "If I'd worked on my first big job with an actor who had a bad attitude, I would've picked up on it." Even as Hoult has become his own leading man, he still views his former co-star as a close friend, as the two actors have maintained a friendly relationship. He told the Independent that Grant's hard-working nature has rubbed off on him. "I can remember him being very specific about beats on the set, and trying things and getting it right. I think you have to be."

The romance between Nicholas Hoult and his "X-Men" co-star Jennifer Lawrence is well-documented. They met on the set of 2011's "X-Men: First Class" and began dating shortly thereafter. Hoult was even so lovesick that he was jealous when Lawrence inked a deal to star opposite Bradley Cooper in "Silver Linings Playbook" after Cooper had been named Sexiest Man Alive. But the "J-Hoult," as we'll call them, had a playful relationship, and this was never on display more than when Lawrence admitted to pranking her boyfriend during an appearance on "The Graham Norton Show."

"So I had Nick's phone and we were in a group message with [Michael] Fassbender and [James] McAvoy, and Josh Helman — another actor in the movie ... and so I wrote this really serious and emotional text [as Hoult]." Posing as her boyfriend, she sent out a message to the three fellow actors and asked them "have you ever lactated from your nipples?" Ever concerned for his friend, McAvoy responded that Hoult should probably see a doctor for a possible hormone disorder, while Fassbender simply retorted, "I don't see what this has to do with anything."

There are countless stories of actors going to great lengths for a role, and some have even done some seriously gross things during a performance, whether it was Leonardo DiCaprio sleeping in an animal carcass or John Leguizamo eating a pizza topped with live maggots. Not to be left out, Nicholas Hoult ate fake brains for his role as an undead walker in the horror comedy "Warm Bodies," and if that wasn't icky enough, eating it out of a prop head brought some extra cringe — because he wound up eating a big thatch of hair.

"There was a scene where I crack open [co-star] Dave Franco's head to eat his brains," Hoult told Collider while promoting the film. "We used a dummy, and I actually pulled some of the dummy's hair out and it was on the brains so I ate a load of fake brains and the dummy's hair which wasn't the most pleasant experience." But don't feel too bad for Hoult, because according to the actor, the brains were surprisingly tasty.

"It was kind of a wet, soft, cold cake mixed with grapefruit and peachy stuff," Hoult explained to People. "It's going to be one of my odd requests wherever I go. 'Delicious brains,' please!"