Alex Lawther

Alexander Jonathan Lawther (born 4 May 1995) is an English actor, writer, and director.

He made his professional acting debut originating the role of John Blakemore in Sir David Hare's South Downs in the West End.

In 2009, a fourteen-year-old Lawther was allowed to write and direct his own full-length play based on a song by Sara Bareilles entitled Rejected Fairytales as part of his drama club involvement, where he received laudatory coverage in the local press as a "theatrical whiz kid" who would end up working as an actor in the West End.

In 2010, he was accepted into the prestigious National Youth Theatre, where he received his only formal training as an actor.

He also collaborated with his brother as an actor on his short film The Fear, made when the elder Lawther was applying to film school.

He did not study drama at GCSE or A level.

He initially planned to read History at King's College London, but ultimately gave up his place after being cast in The Imitation Game; instead, he moved to London at 18 to pursue acting professionally.

Lawther's professional debut came at the age of 16, when he appeared as John Blakemore in Sir David Hare's South Downs at Chichester Festival Theatre.

Lawther found out about an open audition for the play through his school, as the casting directors were scouting real students attending elite private schools in the South Downs for the play's public school setting.

He travelled to London, where he beat hundreds of other young actors for the lead role.

After a local trial run, the play then went to the West End, where he performed the role at the Harold Pinter Theatre in sold out runs whilst still studying for his A Levels.

He received critical acclaim for his performance and, having previously viewed acting as only a hobby, he was encouraged to pursue a career in film and theatre.

Shortly thereafter, he signed a contract with a film agent.

Following his performance in South Downs, Lawther spent much of his early career playing wealthy English schoolboys.

After several small television roles, he portrayed Benjamin Britten as a schoolboy in the docudrama by Tony Britten, Benjamin Britten: Peace and Conflict (2013), also featuring John Hurt as the narrator.

He made his feature film debut playing a young Alan Turing in the Academy Award-winning film The Imitation Game (2014), for which he received the London Film Critics' Circle Award for "Young British Performer of the Year" and was declared one of BAFTA's 2015 Breakthrough Brits.

Lawther received his breakthrough film role as a young Alan Turing during his time at Sherborne School in the Academy Award-winning film The Imitation Game (2014), with Benedict Cumberbatch portraying the older Turing.

The role won him the London Film Critics' Circle Award for "Young British Performer of the Year".

Subsequently, he appeared in a supporting role as a maths prodigy in the critically acclaimed coming-of-age drama film X+Y, alongside Asa Butterfield and Sally Hawkins.

He also starred as a young castrato in Virtuoso, a pilot produced for HBO by Alan Ball, but the show was not picked up by the network.

He returned to the theatre doing various small productions in London during this period, playing a sexually precocious young gay man in The Glass Supper, and the lead in the post-apocalyptic Crushed Shells and Mud.

In 2015, he starred alongside Juliet Stevenson in his first lead film role, playing Elliot in the British film, Departure, the debut film of director Andrew Steggall, filmed in a mixture of French and English.

He achieved more mainstream success for his role as Kenny in "Shut Up and Dance", an episode of the Netflix anthology series Black Mirror (2016), and for portraying the lead role of James in the Channel 4 series The End of the F***ing World (2017–2019).

His other notable work includes his roles in Freak Show, Howards End, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Ghost Stories, The Last Duel and Andor.

On screen, he is known for his frequent portrayals of outsiders and eccentric characters.

Lawther was born in Winchester, Hampshire and raised in Petersfield.

He is of English and Irish descent, possessing dual British and Irish citizenship through his Northern Irish father.

The son of two lawyers, Lawther has described himself as having come from a "white middle-class bubble".

As the youngest of three children, he said that his aspiration to be an actor came from having to make up his own games to entertain himself as a child.

Both of his siblings live and work in the United States, with his older brother, Cameron Lawther, being an award-winning Hollywood film producer, and his older sister Ellie Lawther working in public policy.

Lawther was educated at Churcher's College, a selective independent school in Petersfield.

After getting into trouble for creating an illegitmate drama club at his school with friends, Lawther became heavily involved in the drama programme when an official one was started.

He played Ratty in The Wind in the Willows, Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, and Lucas in The Third Bank of the River, and received the Sir Daniel Day-Lewis Award by the Petersfield Town Council.

In 2016, Lawther played the main character Kenny in "Shut Up and Dance", an episode from series three of the British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror.

While the episode overall received mixed reviews, and Lawther himself later expressed lukewarm feelings for the episode, he received universal acclaim and significant recognition for his performance.

He also performed in the mockumentary film Carnage, directed by his frequent collaborator, comedian Simon Amstell.

In 2017, Lawther played Tibby Schlegel in Howards End, a BBC One adaptation of the E.M. Forster novel that starred Hayley Atwell, as well as the lead role of Billy Bloom in Trudie Styler's Freak Show, where he was supported by Bette Midler, Abigail Breslin, AnnaSophia Robb, Lorraine Toussaint and Larry Pine.

Freak Show marked his first (and thus far only) appearance in an American film; Lawther has expressed a lack of interest in performing in more American films.

Later that same year, he also starred, alongside Jessica Barden, as James in the Peabody Award-winning television series The End of the F***ng World.

The role also brought Lawther more acclaim from critics and further raised his profile in the entertainment industry.