NEXT BIG THING

WOODY NORMAN IS SAILING TO SUCCESS

Fourteen-year-old British actor Woody Norman appeared in Catastrophe, Poldark and the 2019 TV series of The War of the Worlds before starring in acclaimed drama C’mon C’mon with some guy named Joaquin Phoenix (‘I’d seen Brother Bear and that was it’). Now he’s feeling the fear in psychological horror movie Cobweb and Dracula tale The Last Voyage of the Demeter, before going huge in the Russo brothers’ The Electric State…

Was it traumatic portraying the child of creepy, abusive parents in Cobweb?

Yeah. It’s just such a faraway concept to me. I can’t imagine what people who go through that… you know, what that does to their mind. I always like to only be in character when the camera’s on. Method acting doesn’t work for me. [In C’mon C’mon] Joaquin tried to get me to stay in character, but my mum was saying, ‘He doesn’t want to do that.’

The Last Voyage of the Demeter focuses on Dracula’s boat ride to England…

I’ve not read Dracula but I’ve seen Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I quite liked it. In our movie, I play the grandson of the captain of the Demeter. He’s grown up on that ship. And obviously, as it goes on, he and all the other crew mates start to discover that there’s stuff happening on the ship that shouldn’t be happening.

You star with MCU regulars Chris Pratt and Anthony Mackie in the Russos’ The Electric State. Are you a fan of Marvel movies?

Yeah. This is a big action film. It was really, really fun working with [the Russos]. They stay in their tent, and they only come out when they need to tell you something, like, ‘Maybe tweak this.’ They’ll literally have a conversation, and you look away, and they’ve gone. They’re like… it’s the idea of them.

Who do you most want to work with?

I really like Wes Anderson because he has a style. And I really want to work with Timothée Chalamet because he’s a very talented actor.

COBWEB OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 1 SEPTEMBER. THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER AND THE ELECTRIC STATE ARE TBC.