Ed Speleers

In Eragon (2006), Ed Speleers is hurried from one event to the next before his decisions can tell us much about him. The film asks us to accept its hero's importance without giving us much reason to care about the boy. We were frustrated by how little there was to hold on to: the screenplay kept moving him along before his relationships could acquire any weight. Speleers has the central part, but scarcely enough personality on the page to make it his own.

Jeremy Irons supplies the dryness that the film badly needs, and the contrast exposes how little Speleers has been given to work with. This was his first professional role, a lead that demanded he make us care before the script had done its share. We would not pretend he rescues it: there is too little in the performance to make the hurried relationships feel substantial. Still, our low opinion of the film rests on failures that a more experienced leading actor would have struggled to repair.

Television provided the turn, after a period of limited roles, with footman Jimmy Kent in Downton Abbey (2012–2014). An ensemble suits him, allowing him to establish a character through his dealings with other people without having to sustain the whole story himself. Stephen Bonnet, the pirate he plays in Outlander (2018–2020), makes better use of his ability to be engaging without being reassuring. His charm and ruthlessness are both convincing, which is more interesting than a villain who advertises every bad intention.

His film work includes the thriller A Lonely Place to Die (2011), directed by recurring collaborator Julian Gilbey, but we would look to television for a better introduction. Jack Crusher in Star Trek: Picard (2023) gives him swagger and vulnerability to play together. The confidence is more interesting when it looks as though it might fail him, and he benefits from having both qualities to work with. Try Outlander if its period drama appeals; do not let Eragon settle the question.