Max Pirkis

In Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), Pirkis's Blakeney belongs among the adults, yet remains recognisably a boy. His seriousness makes the young midshipman worth attending to alongside Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany. We were moved by Blakeney because Pirkis lets us see his youth even when he seems capable of keeping up with the men. It is an assured screen debut, and Peter Weir gives him room within a forceful naval adventure. The middle needs tightening, but we recommend the film warmly.

Rome (2005) gives that maturity a different use in Gaius Octavian. Pirkis combines innocence with knowingness, making the young man sympathetic while allowing us to recognise how much he understands. He is well suited to a series that needs people we can bear to spend time with amid its cruelty. Ray Stevenson supplies much of its warmth, and Pirkis gives us another reason to stay interested in its characters. Allow for an uneven opening.

These roles account for much of his reputation as an actor, and there is not a long subsequent filmography against which to test that first impression. After a seven-year break from acting, he appeared in The Quiet Ones (2014) and Flying Home (2014). His career also took him into film sales and distribution. The later screen work is sparse enough that an account of his acting still comes back to the midshipman and Octavian.

What we value in those performances is the credibility of their intelligence: Pirkis makes it plausible that adults would take these young people seriously. That can be difficult to achieve with a precocious character, who can soon become tiresome if every exchange insists on his cleverness. Pirkis's combination of youth and maturity gives us something more sympathetic to watch. Two closely related roles cannot establish how he would handle substantially different demands, and we should not pretend otherwise. Start with Weir, where Pirkis has Crowe and Bettany for company.