“It takes a few days to adjust”: the one thing that terrifies Nicholas Hoult about being an actor
The rise of Nicholas Hoult as a Hollywood heavyweight has been both rapid and gradual, wherein, in terms of the former, it feels like he’s unlocked a new level of fame in the past few years.
He’s now a bona fide leading man, an option for skilled auteurs like Robert Eggers and Clint Eastwood, as well as James Gunn’s search for his Lex Luthor. Equally, it also feels like he’s been around for ages, where his first appearance as Hank ‘Beast’ McCoy in the X-Men series in 2011 feels like centuries ago at this point.
Anyone who has ever studied the actor’s Wikipedia page will know that his career stretches back way before he turned furry and blue. He made his first movie appearance at the age of seven in the black comedy Intimate Relations, but his big breakthrough came opposite Hugh Grant in About a Boy, which essentially laid the groundwork for everything that was to come.
Given that he’s spent almost his entire life in the industry, Hoult has had a lot of time to think about his career. While he’s still hopefully got a long way to go, to turn 37 in 2026, he’s given a lot of thought to what the end of his run might look like. Speaking to The London Standard back in 2013, he revealed there was one thing that he feared most of all about life away from the big screen.
“Becoming a sad, old lonely actor,” he confessed, “It’s weird not being able to do anything for yourself. During a film, you have every moment of your life planned. You come out the other end, and you’re like, ‘Now what do I do?’ It takes a few days to adjust.”
Luckily for him, he’s already worked with some of the most famous actors in the world, as in 2009, Hoult appeared in the movie A Single Man, directed by fashion designer-turned-filmmaker Tom Ford, where he plays a young student in the ’60s who becomes romantically involved with his closeted gay teacher, George Falconer, played by Colin Firth, and the experience proved positive beyond the success of the film.
“He’s the best person to go to,” Hoult revealed about his on-set mentor, “Colin’s had the ups and downs, been through the actor breakdowns, he’s very intelligent”.
When you think about it, the number of famous actors who truly ‘retire’ is actually very low. There are far more examples of performers stepping away from the limelight, only to be drawn back in by the right project or the sheer boredom of civilian life. There isn’t an expected ‘retirement age’ for the profession like in most other jobs, and provided they are healthy enough, there’s nothing stopping actors from going well into their 80s and beyond. It’s almost expected that stars work until they drop instead of sailing off into the sunset.
As I said earlier, Nicholas Hoult is hopefully a long way off giving retirement some serious thought. It’s important to think about these things, though, lest you end up the “sad, old lonely actor” that he is so terrified of embodying.
