HOT RIGHT NOW

IS GUNN-ING FOR GLORY.

Iwas not really ever a star,’ Nicholas Hoult told The Guardian in April last year. ‘I’ve never viewed the success I’ve had as being too much. It was never astronomical, your world flipped upside down, you can’t live a normal life.’

Well, that’s about to change. Unless you’ve been living in the Fortress of Solitude, you’ll know that the 34-year-old Brit has been cast as Supes’ arch nemesis Lex Luthor in James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy. Just how front and centre the big-bad billionaire will be in this particular film awaits to be seen – as well as Superman (David Corenswet) and Lois (Rachel Brosnahan), we’re getting heroes Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi) and Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), plus antagonist the Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría) – but Hoult will likely have a major arc over numerous movies in Gunn’s new DC Universe. Also likely is that Hoult will be asked to play it real and grounded, qualities that Gunn praised Michael Rosenbaum for in Smallville. Gunn told Rosenbaum, ‘You are the best Lex,’ while also saying he wasn’t too keen on Gene Hackman’s ‘campy’ portrayal.

Raised in Berkshire, Hoult made his first stage appearance aged three, his screen debut at five and had a major breakthrough in About a Boy, aged 11. He’s since starred in Skins, A Single Man, Warm Bodies, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Favourite, The Menu and several X-Men movies as Hank McCoy/Beast. But, like he said, he has never gone stratospheric. In the last few years, he missed out on Bruce Wayne to Robert Pattinson in The Batman, then an undisclosed role (likely Rooster or Hangman) in Top Gun: Maverick, and finally had to walk away from Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One because of scheduling conflicts with Hulu’s The Great, in which he amusingly plays Russian emperor Peter III as a sociopathic narcissist.

But Hoult’s time is now. As well as Superman: Legacy, we’ll soon see him as estate agent Thomas Hutter in Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, the titular lead in Clint Eastwood’s final movie Juror #2, and starring alongside Jude Law and Jurnee Smollett in Justin Kurzel’s crime thriller The Order. Oh, and he’s also lending his larynx to The Garfield Movie. Yep, his world really is about to flip upside down. JAMIE GRAHAM