Has Nicholas Hoult quietly become the best actor of his generation?

Posted On January 10, 2025January 10, 2025

At one point during a screening of Robert Eggers’ hugely successful Nosferatu remake, a thought popped into my mind that I couldn’t shake. As I sat in the darkened cinema and watched Nicholas Hoult deliver one of the most visceral, raw portrayals of sheer terror that I’ve ever seen on film, I wondered, “Are we in the middle of a ‘Houltaissance’ right now, but nobody seems to have realised?” Then, as his performance kept getting stronger and stronger throughout the movie, that thought changed to, “Wait, has this guy actually become the best actor of his generation?”

Prior to 2024, Hoult had never been an actor I had particularly strong feelings about. I’ve seen him in lots of films over the years, from his precocious breakthrough as an 11-year-old in About A Boy to his stint as Hank McCoy/Beast in the X-Men films, to other interesting pictures like A Single Man, Warm Bodies, The Favourite, and The Menu. He was always good in these movies, and I never saw his name in a cast list and thought, “Ugh.” Equally, though, he wasn’t the sort of actor who I’d get excited to see. Then I saw Juror #2 in late 2024, and everything changed.

In truth, watching Hoult’s performance in Clint Eastwood’s precision-crafted legal thriller was a quiet revelation. As recovering alcoholic Justin Kemp, a man who improbably finds himself on the jury of a murder trial in which he may be responsible for the crime, Hoult is a restrained mass of coiled emotions. He rarely lets them get the better of him, as he has to play dumb for the other people on the jury, but the turmoil going on inside him is all there in Hoult’s performance. It’s genuinely brilliant – not to mention the kind of performance that should nominated for an Academy Award.

A month or so after Juror #2, Hoult returned to screens in Justin Kurzel’s searing crime drama The Order. This time, the star – whose entire physique and physicality seem to have changed – played the menacingly terrifying real-life white supremacist Bob Mathews with aplomb. Once again, he’s a coiled spring for almost the whole film, but this time, he’s trying to hide bubbling rage, hatred and malevolence instead of guilt and panic. Not even Mathews’ questionable bowl haircut could diminish the raw power of Hoult’s performance.

Next up was Thomas Hutter in Nosferatu, completing a trilogy of terrific portrayals. He has revealed in interviews that he shot the three films effectively back-to-back, and perhaps that helped him maintain such a high level of quality in the performances. Either way, the one-two-three punch of Juror #2, The Order, and Nosferatu vaulted him to the top of the must-see actors’ list, and now, he encourages excitement whenever he’s landed himself on to a cast list. It’s made the decision to put Hoult into his second superhero series as Lex Luthor all the more intriguing.

Whatever has happened with Hoult in 2024, I’d argue it can’t be denied that he’s now operating at a higher level than before. In truth, it’s a level that not many other 35-year-olds can match, a feat that leads him into strong consideration for being the best of a generation. While Hoult can rightly take the majority of plaudits, another actor can also grab a slice of the credit. Hoult told Rolling Stone that the best piece of advice he’s ever received from an actor or director was given to him on the set of Juror #2 by the living legend that is Eastwood.

Hoult revealed, “I sat with him and thought, I might as well pick his brain about how he does what he does. And he gave a very straightforward answer. He said, ‘Oh, it’s an emotional art form, so don’t think too much. You just do.’ And I was like, ‘Oh yeah.’ It’s so simple in many ways when you look at it like that.” He added, “Another time he walked past me on set, and he was like, ‘What are you thinking about – the scene or whatever?’ And I was like, ‘Absolutely nothing.’ And he goes, ‘That’s my kind of actor.’”

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