Nicholas Hoult makes the effort of staying composed unusually watchable. We rate him most when he has time to let discomfort show, though his apologetic comedy can be just as good as his quieter threats.
Fi1m perspective
In Juror #2 (2024), Nicholas Hoult listens to a witness, swallows and tries to keep his face still. Clint Eastwood gives him time to let the effort show. Yves Bélanger holds him in the courtroom’s flat daylight; editors Joel Cox and David S. Cox return to the wet road in fragments. We felt our stomach drop because that small swallow made his alarm visible. The premise creaks, but this is the kind of leading performance we want more of from him.
The child actor noticed in About a Boy (2002) became the arresting Tony Stonem of Skins (2007). We did not need to like Tony, though Mike Bailey’s Sid made the warmer impression. Then came the physical transformations of Beast in X-Men: First Class (2011) and Nux in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). His quieter work in 2024 offers a better place to see how much he can do with an apparently ordinary man.
Justin Kurzel uses that restraint to frightening effect in The Order (2024), where Hoult’s Robert Jay Mathews barely raises his voice. His patient, practical delivery makes appalling words sound briefly reasonable. Costume designer Rachel Dainer-Best’s work shirts and quilted waistcoat help: there is nothing in his appearance to announce a monster. Robert Eggers asks for a different kind of quietness in Nosferatu (2024), and Hoult gives Thomas Hutter a credible decency under pressure. Lily-Rose Depp remains the reason we recommend that film.
His comedy depends on a similar control of tone. In Renfield (2023), his apologetic, faintly appalled delivery is exactly the foil Nicolas Cage’s vain Dracula needs. Chris McKay’s film then keeps them apart for too long and spends its time on fights cut into incoherent fragments. Hoult is well cast in a film we cannot recommend; the support-group scenes suggest a better comedy than the one we get.
In Superman (2025), his Lex Luthor is tight, sweating and unable to leave a grievance alone. Hoult makes James Gunn’s busy film sharper whenever Luthor tries to win an argument by controlling what appears on everybody’s screens. The surrounding clutter is a recurring frustration: he gets a precise comic or dramatic idea to play, and the film piles distractions around it. Start with Juror #2, where sitting still gives him quite enough to do.
Biography
Nicholas Hoult is an English actor. Born in Wokingham, Berkshire, he began acting as a child and made his feature debut in Intimate Relations (1996). He gained early notice as Marcus in About a Boy (2002) and played Tony Stonem in the series Skins (2007–2008).
Hoult is known for roles including Hank McCoy / Beast in the X-Men films (2011–2019), Nux in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Renfield in Renfield (2023), Thomas Hutter in Nosferatu (2024), Robert Jay Mathews in The Order (2024), Justin Kemp in Juror #2 (2024), and Lex Luthor in Superman (2025). He has received BAFTA, Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy Award nominations. His great-aunt was actress Anna Neagle.
