Everyone loves big-name movie stars, but the humble character actors who don't always get their flowers deserve more attention. Some performers insist upon their own coolness and demand the spotlight whenever they're around, but great talents like Nicholas Hoult have a gift. Even in a film like Renfield, where he's the lead, Hoult manages to stretch his limits and get delightfully unhinged.
Renfield is yet another attempt to reboot the Universal Dracula franchise that started over 90 years ago. This time, it focuses on the vampire's long-suffering assistant as he tries to escape the toxic working relationship he's been stuck in for generations. Nicholas Hoult portrays the title role as a combination of a put-upon everyman and an immortal superhero.
Nicholas Hoult was cast in his first film role at the age of five. Now, at 33, he's one of the most in-demand talents in the industry. He's appeared in small independent films and massive blockbusters, but most fans agree that he's at his best when he gets to cut loose and inhabit a bizarre little role. His earliest performances in films like Wah-Wah and A Single Man were impactful, but his first really high-profile gig was a supporting role in the 2009 remake of Clash of the Titans. Hoult exploded onto the scene in the early 2010s. In 2011's X-Men: First Class he picked up the role of a young Hank "Beast" McCoy from Kelsey Grammar. In 2013, he starred in the strange zombie romance film Warm Bodies and the ill-fated Jack the Giant Slayer. He returned to the Beast role in Days of Future Past before landing his biggest and most interesting performance to date.
Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the best big Hollywood blockbusters to hit the big screen in the past decade. The film revolutionized the popular Australian post-apocalyptic action franchise, but it also introduced a deeply human core to the story. Max's name is in the title, but the hero and heart of Fury Road is Charlize Theron's Imperator Furiosa. However, throughout the film's narrative, we get to meet Nux. Nux is one of Immortan Joe's War Boys, a full devotee to the nightmarish death cult that now owns this chunk of the new world. As Nux throws himself at Max, Furiosa, and the brides, he experiences the first moment of compassion in his life. His emotional journey leads him from the dangerous henchman of a deadly warlord to a hero who willingly sacrifices himself so that others can escape his old boss. Nux is a powerful character and Hoult's willingness to be completely gleefully wild in his performance is inspiring.
The most recent success of Hoult's career came in last year's The Menu. Starring alongside Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes, Hoult is one of the central fixtures of the film's thesis statement. Hoult portrays Tyler, a self-proclaimed foodie who represents the pitiable societal obsession with celebrity chefs. Early in the film, he delivers the well-worn explanation of chefs as the replacement for athletes or musicians. He comes off as a relatively normal man with an unhealthy obsession with Fiennes' head chef. As the story goes on and the night begins to unfold, the change in his character is the sharpest edge of the darkening tone. When Tyler finally gets taken down a peg near the third act, it's one of the most bizarrely satisfying moments of the film. Most of that success is in Hoult's performance. He may not look quite as creepy as Nux, but his portrayal of Tyler is deeply unsettling.
Nicholas Hoult has had his worst performances when he's the leading man. That's not to say he's never a compelling star, he's a mixed bag in that department. The secret appears to be giving him a suitably strange role. When he's a standard-issue action hero, he fails to impress. Perhaps his worst modern performance comes in the 2013 film Jack the Giant Slayer. He's not terrible in the title role, he's just really boring. The script doesn't give him anything to sink his teeth into. Warm Bodies, released the same year, casts him as a zombie slowly returning to humanity, and it manages to pull a much stronger performance out of far fewer lines of dialogue. Hoult seems to really enjoy playing the kind of off-kilter characters that a lot of stars wouldn't touch. Thankfully, he's also great at it.
Nicholas Hoult may have found his big hero role in Renfield. He's clearly framed like a superhero, but he's also an exploited employee. Even his moments of power are framed around him eating spiders. Like Renfield, Hoult seems to draw strength from doing gross and unusual stuff. He's one of Hollywood's biggest and best character actors. Whether he has his long-term starring role locked down, he'll always be around in the background and supporting roles that we love.