David Jonsson

In Rye Lane (2023), David Jonsson’s Dom listens to Yas before working out what to say. Opposite Vivian Oparah, whose delivery seems to leave little room for hesitation, he makes the quieter part feel active. We found ourselves willing them to kiss, because both actors made each reply sound changed by what they had just heard. Raine Allen-Miller’s romance is slight and uses familiar contrivances, but the pair give us a reason to stay with it.

The move from Industry (2020) to Rye Lane took him from an entitled Etonian banker to a wounded south London romantic lead. Gus Sackey was his television breakthrough; Dom was his feature-film debut. There is no appeal for easy sympathy in his playing of Dom. The character’s gradual willingness to put his grief aside gives Oparah’s speed something to work against.

Alien: Romulus (2024) asks for a more visibly constructed performance. As Andy, a second-hand synthetic and Rain’s adopted brother, Jonsson is courteous and apologetic, telling bad jokes because her father asked him to. He works through posture and diction, making the machine’s vulnerability convincing. Fede Álvarez’s film borrows so heavily from earlier Alien films that recognition sometimes blunts the fear. Jonsson is the chief reason to see it, though the surrounding film relies too often on things we already know.

The Long Walk (2025) puts him beside Cooper Hoffman. Under Francis Lawrence’s direction, Jonsson’s Peter McVries answers the ordeal by trying to make a friend, and his cheerfulness slips only when he is unobserved. The conversations with Hoffman’s Garraty sustain a film whose single idea eventually begins to wear thin. Jonsson lets us see the effort involved in keeping another person company when he has little comfort to offer. We would welcome another romance, provided his co-star has as much to do as Oparah.