Movie Actors: Taron Egerton

In august 2013 Taron Egerton had never been on a movie set. Now, three years later, he is one of the most popular and talented young actors around. His breakthrough role in Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) was a huge hit, it grossed over 400 million dollars. What makes Taron more interesting than many other young actors, is his choice of movies. After playing a handsome spy, it would have been 'easy' for Egerton to stay the new heartthrob and continue starring in flashy, popular movies. This is, fortunately, not the path that the 26-year old guy from Wales has chosen. His next films were a supporting role in a costume drama, Testament of Youth (2014) and a role as Tom Hardy's lover in Legend (2015). It shows some guts to not take on conventional roles. 

After watching Eddie the Eagle (2016) I was even more convinced of Taron's very bright future. His character is in real life not quite a looker and Taron makes throughout the movie a permanent (effective) funny face and wears very unflattering glasses. It's dangerous for actors to not look attractive and handsome in movies nowadays, because Hollywood is so focused on whether an actor looks good enough. Egerton is making quite a statement by choosing yet another unconventional role. What I find rather interesting is that basically all his projects so far are very British. Unlike fellow British young actors like Jack O'Connell (Money Monster (2016)) or Richard Madden (Bastille Day (2016)) he stays in Great Britain. This does say something about his ambitions. If he would have taken some American projects impulsively, it would show that he really wants to get as famous as possible very quickly. By doing smaller projects he seems more humble and grounded.

But that doesn't mean he won't star in big budget films in the future! First of all, there is the second film with Taron as Eggsy: Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), which has added Julianne Moore, Halle Berry and Channing Tatum to its already impressive cast. Also, he will star as the title character in Robin Hood: Origins (2017) next year. So it's not like Taron hasn't got ambition, but at least he's not starring as random superhero (which 75% of Hollywood is doing at the moment).

Taron is not only a talented actor, he is a genuinely nice guy. He had to do a lot of interviews with Hugh Jackman (for Eddie the Eagle) and Colin Firth (for Kingsman) and he comes across as funny and a pleasure to be around. He is very candid and he makes it very noticeable that he isn't as experienced at talking to the press as other actors. It doesn't feel like he's putting up a show (but he might just be that good of an actor).

I'm very interested in seeing how Taron's career will unfold in the next couple of years. I think he really is going to make it, because he's got it all: the talent, the looks, the personality and the drive.