tMF | The Movie-Fanatic

Nicholas Hoult is already a tMF favorite even before his controversial role in Skins, playing Tony, the attractive and charming young man who also happens to be one of the series' major characters. Before his role in that British TV series, he was quite impressive playing the teenage son of Nicholas Cage in The Weather Man and who can forget his role as Marcus, "the excruciatingly uncool but still endearing 12-year-old with a pudding-bowl haircut who befriends Hugh Grant" in About A Boy?

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This time, Hoult is trying to expand his acting horizon by playing an important role in theatre. Reports the Telegraph:

Taking a break from screen work, Hoult is about to make his West End debut in an adaptation of William Sutcliffe's book New Boy. A hit at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2000, the play tells the story of Mark (Hoult), 'a virgin, who has not got many friends, isn't the best looking guy but is very clever', who on entering the sixth form befriends the dazzlingly good-looking new boy Barry, who he thinks will somehow help him get laid. A hormone-laden comedy of embarrassment, this is not unfamiliar territory for Hoult. But for someone not known for, or trained in, theatre - his last stage performance was in pantomime in Reading 10 years ago - it is, I suggest, a bold step.

One can describe Hoult's choice of roles and the medium of performance to be quite diverse, and perhaps challenging to a young actor like him. But Hoult seems to be quite consistent in being this way - taking his acting to the next level by playing roles not every young actor is capable of doing.

He was quite matter-of-fact about it:

'It will be fun,' Hoult says. 'And what's the point of always going through life doing the same thing? Last time I did theatre I enjoyed it.' His reason for picking this play was just as sanguine: 'I got sent this script and really enjoyed it. It made me laugh.' When I ask about the particular demands of stage acting as opposed to screen work, he shrugs: 'I haven't been taught it. I suppose it's about projection and all that... I don't know. I'm going to learn that as I go along, hopefully.' It would all sound impossibly blithe if he didn't then add, 'To tell you the truth, it hasn't quite kicked in. [ read more ]

More about his new role in New Boy, reports The Dish:

From the offset, this play was hilarious and the combination of rude humour and teenage angst had the audience laughing. We were invited to join the story of Mark and the new boy at school Barry and the trails and tribulations of their relationship. For a West End virgin Nicholas was very natural and after two girls running across the set to go to the toilet, we could also see his improvisation skills are perfectly up to scratch! It was not only Nicholas's improvisation skills that were tested but Mel's too! At one point the lights come up on the audience as if we too, are part of a lesson at school. Unfortunately for her, someone's (not a planted actor I may add) phone went off in the audience and she subsequently told "Trevor" off and confiscated his phone for the rest of the performance!

The only bad thing I can say about this play is that it was too short, I could have easily had an interval and come back for a second half! At the end of the performance the gentleman next to me turned and said "I have been to theatre eleven times already this year, and for sheer entertainment value, this was bar far the best!" - and he wasn't wrong.

Sexy and 'Sexual' Roles: There is no doubt Hoult has considerable sex appeal - it certainly stems from the fact that he's quite young but there is something about him that makes people think of such words as 'naughty' or even 'notorious'. His Skins role proved he can really heat up the screen. Here's another role for Hoult that would highlight his onscreen sex appeal:

Being cast in A Single Man is another case in point, though he landed the role only when Jamie Bell dropped out two weeks before shooting. Based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood, the film covers one day in the life of a homosexual Englishman and professor at a Californian college (played by Colin Firth) whose lover (Matthew Goode) has recently died. Julianne Moore plays his friend and Hoult one of his students. 'Myself, Colin, Matthew and everyone had to have spray tans,' Hoult says, describing the weekly routine at his LA hotel room of being hosed down while standing on towels in only his underpants. 'That was a little bit strange.' Tom Ford, he says, 'wanted everyone to have a particular look. Everything had to be precise.' Hoult didn't realise who Ford was until after their first meeting, when he looked him up on Google. 'I'm glad I didn't know or I probably would have had a panic about what to wear. I flung on whatever,' he chuckles.

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Even Tom Ford, the film's director is making extra effort to make his young actor look credible and authentic. Again, here's some more insights from The Telegraph:

On the set of A Single Man, Tom Ford lent him a copy of the spiritualist self-help book The Power of Now, 'because that's a book my character would read'. Hoult sees its applications to his life as an actor. 'You enjoy the present. That's the good thing about [the actor's life]. It makes you live in the now. Not in the future or past. Reading books like that, the Buddhist outlook on life, learning about that, being quite chilled out, you appreciate the good stuff and make the most of the bad.'

Up and Coming Role: Hoult is 'rumoured' to be part of the cast of Nick Moran's The Kid. Here's more about the movie:

Kevin Lewis never had a chance. Growing up on a poverty-stricken London council estate, beaten and starved by his parents, bullied at school and abandoned by social services, his life was never his own. Even after he was put into care, he found himself out on the streets caught up in a criminal underworld that knew him as 'The Kid'. Yet Kevin survived to make a better life for himself. This international bestseller published in 2003 is his heartbreaking and inspiring story.

Hoult is reported to be playing the young Kevin Lewis while it's Rupert Friend's turn to play the older Kevin. Also in the cast is Ioan Gruffudd.

I'm really looking forward for more Nicholas Hoult this 2009 and yeah, definitely for next year, and the next and the next...