NYLON - January 2009 - (Page 140) I looked as if I had the ability to concentrate. Turns out he was right.” By five, he was landing regular minor roles in British TV shows while struggling to keep up with schoolwork. “I found it hard to focus on the subjects I wasn’t much interested in,” he says, adding that he found it far easier to focus on more extracurricular subjects that did manage to take his fancy. “I loved watching films, and I remember once watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers seven times in a row. Is that weird of me?” He landed About a Boy at the age of 12, and went on to appear in Richard E. Grant’s biographical tale about growing up in Swaziland, Wah-Wah, three years later. Now with Skins— , NICHOLAS WITH A LEADING ROLE IN THE GROUND BREAKING SERIES SKINS NEIL GAVIN which enjoyed a popularity BY HOULT IS ALL GROWN UP. BY NICK DUERDEN. PHOTOGRAPHED in the U.K. that transformed him into a small-scale rock star—under his belt, Hoult and laughs easily, and is We meet in London just Thanks largely to his role as movie-going public viewed Tony in the hit BBC America him before Skins came along, as BBC America announces terribly embarrassed when is intent on making acting a lifelong career. He admires as he was chiefly famous for plans to air the second series he realizes he has left his teen drama series Skins, young British actor Nicholas his wonderfully awkward turn of Skins. Hoult was invited wallet back at his publicist’s everyone from Peter Sellers to Leonardo DiCaprio and, as the prepubescent kid with along to a press junket in office, requiring me to pay Hoult is fast becoming given the opportunity, would the States to help plug the for his coffee. “I owe you something of a breakout star. a terrible haircut in About a love to specialize in quirky, Imagine Dawson’s Creek set Boy, the 2002 movie starring show, but friends of his were one,” he says. going on a guys’ holiday to Hugh Grant. Hoult was born and raised oddball types. He would in London with sex, drugs, Portugal, so he opted for “That was probably far in Reading, a commuter belt prefer to be a character all-night parties, and the actor, he suggests, rather the latter instead: “Had a closer to me in terms of town just outside London, occasional overdose, and than someone whose name fantastic time,” he grins. and landed his first role in you have Skins in a nutshell. personality, I’m afraid,” He is impossibly tall, he says with an endearing a stage play (he forgets the sits grandly above the title. Hoult’s Tony is the show’s “I hope as I get older, the and skinny with it, his skin title) at the ridiculous age resignation. For someone lynchpin—the ridiculously almost distractingly pale. His of three: “The director had parts get more interesting,” this gauche and gangly in self-confident, sardonic face is a remarkable thing to seen me in the audience of he says, sipping at his coffee. real life to prove quite so young man everyone else He is anxious to get orbits around. Girls love him; believable as Skins’ resident behold: Helena Christensen’s another play my mum had older, he admits, for a very cheekbones, a pair of blazing taken me to. He said that James Dean type suggests boys want to be his friend. particular reason. that Hoult’s acting chops are blue eyes, and some very “No idea why they cast “I can’t grow facial hair developing very nicely indeed. overambitious eyebrows that me, to be honest,” says yet,” he says, rubbing a pair seem intent on sprouting Hoult. “I couldn’t be any less of smooth cheeks. “The day every which way. He is 18 like my character if I tried. I can grow a beard will be years old but looks younger, I’m too much of the geek; the making of me, trust me. and certainly more innocent. always have been ” I can hardly wait.” He is soft-spoken, chatty, This was certainly how the king dork 140
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