9 December 2025
Nicholas Hoult was told that he would “go off the rails” after finding fame as a child actor.
Nicholas Hoult found fame as a child actor
The Superman star was just 11 years of age when he starred in the 2002 movie About a Boy and reflected on how he was warned numerous times that the careers of child actors decline once they have grown up.
Speaking at the Red Sea Film Festival in Saudi Arabia, Nicholas said: “There was this fear sitting after that because everything then, even as a kid, everyone talks to you about how child actors stop working, their life goes off the rails, and it doesn’t work out as an adult.
“You have this fear of what’s to come, but even then, I knew I wanted to continue doing it. I was also slightly guarded about it, I suppose, because I was like, there’s a good chance this doesn’t work out.”
Nicholas is grateful that his parents didn’t put any “pressure to succeed” on his shoulders during his formative years as an actor.
He said: “Luckily, my parents and my family were wonderful in the sense of they sent me to normal school and kept my life around acting as regular as possible.”
Hoult hailed his About a Boy co-star Hugh Grant for setting an example of how to be “gracious” and “kind” whilst at work on a movie set.
The 36-year-old star recalled: “He was a great leader to instil that in me and also Toni Collette who I luckily got to do another movie with.
“She played my mom in that. And then we did a movie two years ago called Juror Number Two that Clint Eastwood directed. So it was lovely to reunite with her.
“These people that have known me since I was a kid, but now I’m a completely different person, and now I get to know them again as an adult, as more contemporaries, which is really special.”
Nicholas reflected on what it was like being on a film set at such a young age, recalling how he often used to play cricket between takes.
The Nosferatu actor said: “I was like a kid and excited when directors got me a PS2. When I was like, I want to play a PlayStation.
“Then in the stage that was next to the set we were filming on, me and the third assistant director would run in there and play cricket. In between the set-ups.
“Then they’d get upset with me because I’d really be playing as hard as I could and I’d get more sweaty, and I’d go back to set, and then they’d be like, ‘We have to dry his hair because he was playing.’
“It was like, it was play time for me. That’s what I feel acting should be. It’s a job. There’s a lot of responsibilities, but you’ve got to keep that playfulness about it.”
