Samuel Bottomley

On the neighbouring balcony in How to Have Sex (2023), Samuel Bottomley's Paddy is the quiet one beside Shaun Thomas's loud, kind Badger. Paddy is good-looking and knows it. We felt uneasy at his easy confidence, particularly beside Badger's uncomplicated warmth. Bottomley makes that difference clear without doing much to draw attention to himself. His unshowy acting is well suited to these stories of young men and the pressure they put on one another.

He began as a child actor in Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur (2011), a film whose harshness is made bearable chiefly by Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman. His later move into more mature parts includes Dean Paxton in Everybody's Talking About Jamie (2021) and Aaron in Somewhere Boy (2022). The latter's concern with isolation and harmful ideas about masculinity fits a recurring interest across his roles. These are often young men whose behaviour is shaped by insecurity and the need to fit in.

Molly Manning Walker's How to Have Sex is the clearest test of how much he can contribute when the writing is limited. We rate the film highly, but Paddy is one of its weaknesses. Bottomley plays him capably, without asking us for sympathy, and Manning Walker gives him no interior life to find. His quiet confidence tells us how he gets by among other people; it cannot explain much about him. Mia McKenna-Bruce's remarkable performance is the stronger reason to see it.

There is value in an actor who can play an unpleasant young man without asking for sympathy. The risk is that such usefulness becomes a casting habit, with every new part supplying another version of the same boy. We would like to see Bottomley given characters who are allowed to be uncertain as well as casually sure of themselves, and scenes that let us watch the change. Start with How to Have Sex, but do not expect Paddy to tell us everything this actor might be able to do.