Superman Star Nicholas Hoult's Career Took Off With This Hugh Grant Comedy

British actor and all-round decent chap Nicholas Hoult first appeared on my radar as War Boy Nux in "Mad Max: Fury Road," by which stage he had already started established a foothold in Hollywood by taking over as Beast in the "X-Men" series. Since then, he has developed into one of those actors who seems to be in every other movie, appearing in four high-profile films in 2024 (albeit one, "Garfield," was a voice role) and  playing Lex Luthor as a psychotic tech bro in James Gunn's "Superman." Unlike Lex Luthor, Hoult has also used his fame for good causes, supporting numerous charities including Save the Children and the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Hoult started out performing in theater productions in the '90s aged just three years old. In 1996, he made his first screen appearance in "Intimate Relations" alongside Rupert Graves and Julie Walters and started popping up in popular British TV shows like BBC's "Casualty," "Silent Witness,' and ITV's "The Bill." Then, at the age of 11, Hoult got his first major acting role in "About a Boy," the hit comedy-drama starring Hugh Grant, Toni Collette, and Rachel Weisz.

Intelligently adapted from the novel by Nick Hornby, "About a Boy" came along during a period of peak popularity for the British author. Hornby's insightful and gently funny books hit a sweet spot in the mid-to-late '90s. Touching upon the everyday concerns of the average British bloke and their obsessions, Hornby was always a pleasure to read and well-suited for mid-budget movie adaptations. First came "Fever Pitch," with Colin Firth a little awkward as an obsessive Arsenal fan, and "High Fidelity" got the Hollywood treatment with John Cusack and Jack Black. "About a Boy" was arguably the best of the lot: a film that proved Hugh Grant could really act, and this kid Nicholas Hoult wasn't half bad, either.

Hugh Grant plays the appropriately-named Will Freeman, a dedicated bachelor who likens himself an island — preferably Ibiza, because he's all about fun and no-strings-attached hookups. Will is independently wealthy thanks to the royalties from his dad's one-hit-wonder Christmas song, which means he can spend his days doing nothing more demanding than buying stuff, watching game shows on TV, and visiting the barber to keep his hair "carefully dishevelled." At the age of 38, he's happy to admit that he has never done a day's work in his life or had any meaningful long-term relationships. 

After dating a divorced mother and enjoying the stress-free breakup, Will decides to join a support group for single parents to scope out other lonely women. No kid? No problem — Will just invents a two-year-old son called Ned and starts wooing Suzie (Victoria Smurfit). Their picnic playdate doesn't go quite as well as Will would like because Suzie brings along Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), the lonely and socially awkward 12-year-old son of her friend. Marcus's emotionally fragile mother Fiona (Toni Collette) is going through a rough patch and, after she attempts suicide, Marcus decides to make Will her boyfriend to cheer her up.

Will isn't interested, but Marcus stalks him and learns that he doesn't really have a child of his own. Marcus uses this information to blackmail Will, who begrudgingly allows the kid to hang out at his apartment after school. In return, Will persuades Marcus to pretend to be his son so he can date Rachel (Rachel Weisz), another attractive single mother with a son the same age. Naturally, Will's lies can't remain a secret forever, and it all comes to an embarrassing head when he is found out. Yet, despite his commitment to shallow self-interest, Will gradually discovers the truism that no man is an island and finds himself drawn into actually caring about Marcus and his mum.

"About a Boy" was a critical and commercial success, with Hugh Grant receiving much praise for his performance and the screenplay being nominated for an Academy Award. The film has aged better than the big romantic comedies that made the Grant such a huge star, especially now we're familiar with his grumpy public persona that is perhaps closer to Will Freeman than it seemed at the time. It's also fascinating looking back at Hoult's breakthrough role.

At first glance, "About a Boy" seems like it's set in the same London postcode as all the touchy-feely Richard Curtis rom-coms for which Hugh Grant was most famous at that point in his career. It has a similar surface gloss, good-looking cast, and self-effacing humor, but it delves far deeper into the characters than the cozy twinkle might first suggest. Ultimately, it's a story about three damaged and lonely people: Will, whose pampered existence has turned him into a listless and shallow individual trapped in a state of arrested adolescence; Fiona, whose day-to-day struggle with mental health issues has severely affected her ability to be a consistently present mother; and Marcus, whose unorthodox upbringing and troubled home life has made him an outsider targeted by bullies at school.

The film works so well because the shrewd screenplay (co-written by directors Chris Weitz & Paul Weitz with Peter Hedges) largely rejects sentimentality and the temptation to make these people nice in a traditional way. This is where Grant excels in particular. Shortly after playing a caddish womanizer in "Bridget Jones' Diary," Grant shed his stammering English charmer shtick further to reveal a more cynical and misanthropic side to his screen persona that was perfectly suited for Will Freeman. He's well-matched by Hoult, who avoids asking for the audience's sympathy as he makes Marcus seem disconcerting and a little off, possibly somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Lastly, it's natural to feel compassion for Fiona and her problems, but Collette portrays her as a brittle and prickly person with whom you might not necessarily want to spend much time.

In other words, they seem a lot like real people with genuinely messy lives rather than stock characters in a mainstream comedy, and the dynamics between them flex and mesh in believable ways as the story unfolds. If there is one bum note, it's that the screenwriters can't resist throwing in a love interest for Marcus, too, drawing unwanted comparisons to a very similar scenario in "Love, Actually." We don't need that in an otherwise thoughtful and touching film that delivers beautifully without resorting to a pat romantic ending that ties up all the loose ends. I also could've done without the freeze frame on Hoult's smiling face at the end, but I'll forgive him that. It seems to say: Watch this kid, he's going places. And they were right.