Shaun Thomas makes kindness convincing, even in a boy shouting across a holiday balcony. His warmth makes friendships worth watching, although How to Have Sex gives him less to work with than we would like.
Fi1m perspective
When Conner Chapman's Arbor threatens to wear us out in The Selfish Giant (2013), Thomas's Swifty gives the friendship a gentler pace. Clio Barnard's boys are collecting scrap metal, and Thomas makes their pleasure in being together as convincing as their need to earn. We were moved by those scrap-collecting scenes because the boys still find something to enjoy in each other's company when money takes up so much of their attention. Swifty's gentleness matters beside Chapman's difficult, excitable Arbor; Thomas does not need to compete with that energy to make his part count.
His subsequent work included the television comedy-drama Ladhood (2019–2022) and Ali & Ava (2021), his second film with Barnard. We would still begin with Barnard, whose scrap-collecting drama gives him a friendship substantial enough to sustain a film. Its occasionally familiar plotting is a real limitation, but the two leads keep us interested. The later Badger shows that Thomas need not play quietly to be good company.
In Molly Manning Walker's How to Have Sex (2023), Badger is the first to shout across from the neighbouring balcony and takes to Tara straight away. Thomas drew on people he had met and researched how a modern party boy might behave when preparing the role. What counts on screen is how readily the loudness sits alongside kindness: Badger is easy with Tara, without any grand display of consideration. Samuel Bottomley's quieter Paddy gives Thomas a different sort of contrast from Chapman's Arbor. The boys are drawn more thinly than the girls, though, and even this persuasive friendliness cannot make the part as substantial as we would like.
There is a risk that such warmth becomes all a film asks of him. We would welcome parts that put more pressure on it, rather than assuming he will supply the likeable friend. Start with The Selfish Giant for the fuller performance, then try How to Have Sex to hear him raise his voice.
Biography
Shaun Thomas is an English actor born on 30 May 1997 in Bradford, West Yorkshire. His first professional screen role was as Swifty in Clio Barnard's The Selfish Giant (2013).
Thomas has appeared in films including Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016), Grimsby (2016), Ali & Ava (2021) and How to Have Sex (2023), in which he played Badger. He won the British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Performance for the latter role. His television credits include Emmerdale, Ladhood, The Long Shadow (2023) and the series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2026) as Ser Raymun Fossoway. He is also credited in The Choral (2025).
