We’ve seen Nicholas Hoult have a lot of sex in Skins, but bludgeoning people to death in a role as a serial killer? Surely not.
From the innocent Marcus with the cute smile and bowl haircut in About A Boy to rampant teen Tony in Skins to Beast in X-Men to Nux in Mad Max: Fury Road, we’ve watched the Berkshire-born blue-eyed boy grow up on screen.
But in his latest film Kill Your Friends, adapted from John Niven’s brilliant cult tome about the music industry in the ’90s, Hoult has unleashed his sinister capabilities for the first time in his career.
If you’re not aware of the book – and you should definitely read it if you haven’t – Steven Stelfox is a toxic A&R label exec who would do anything to get ahead in the game. Backstabbing, loads of drugs, threesomes, murder… Stelfox is on a par with American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman.
Hoult clearly paid close attention to Christian Bale’s Bateman. Stelfox is also a narrating anti-hero with charm and good looks, which didn’t go unnoticed by Rita Ora and Charlie XCX at one of the film’s screenings his week. Apparently they cooed as Hoult did his worst.
Who cares if you’re a sick f*ck, as long as you’re good looking sick f*ck, right? (Not that you can blame them; Hoult wears just Calvin Klein pants for a fair chunk of the film, his six-pack almost too impressive for Stelfox’s cocaine and champagne diet).
Sitting down the day after the film’s premiere in London, which JOE attended, Hoult discussed his first adult lead.
He tells us it was John Niven’s writing that attracted him to the role, in fact it was years ago he agreed to it, how one of his favourite scenes is smashing in James Corden’s skull to the sound of The Prodigy.
And how even after all this time, he still can’t watch himself back on screen. He’s so critical, in fact, that even I felt awkward…
https://youtu.be/tCwEj974f6I
JOE also sat down with Hoult’s co-star Craig Roberts. You can read our interview with him next week.
Kill Your Friends is released in UK cinemas on November 6.
