Nicholas Hoult
Appearances
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Yeah. And also it's that thing of like, you know, you end up on set sometimes where people won't come out of trailers and this and that. And there's just extra kind of ego business going on. And there wasn't any of that. So I think good to have, you know, good behavior around that sort of, you know.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Yeah, I don't think any of us were prepared for how well that show would do. And I stand by this. Somebody was asking me about that show the other day, and I was saying, I think the reason that it did kind of capture the moment so well is because it wasn't expected to be what it was. You know, I feel like more commonly now when shows kind of showing the teen way of life and whatever,
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
And they're going to show everything and it's going to be hardcore and all this sort of stuff. There's kind of this idea of what it's going to be and how it's going to fit into the zeitgeist early. Whereas that was kind of like, we're just going to make this show. We're kind of messing around.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
It's a good bunch of people, very talented bunch and great writing, but it's kind of like nothing's expected of it. And then it did kind of blow up in a way that I feel like it still kind of gets watched by some people now. I've never actually seen it.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
I was 16 or 17. And I guess it was around then that maybe camera phones and stuff were starting to kind of come out as well. And it was a weird transition because up until then,
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
i'd basically most of the time just been able to live my life very normally and and i still can mostly day to day it's um being recognized as kind of a weird it goes in weird waves i don't know if you find this but it's like if you've had something out recently or you've been on people's screens then maybe they recognize you otherwise people just look at me like maybe we went to school together but at that period because that show was very popular like with my age group and everything as well it was kind of it felt like i was under scrutiny a lot
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Yeah. I don't know. What kind of attention do people want?
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Yeah, Nux is meant to be kind of essentially on his deathbed the day that you meet him at the start of the film. So that was something George asked me to do, was to lose some weight. And I did get a strange body dysmorphia through that where I didn't feel I was that skinny and then looked back at photos and I was like, oh, you were very skinny. I didn't realize quite how far I'd gone with it.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
It wasn't that. It was just not eating as much and just running tons and jumping rope and like, yeah, just not eating that much. I wish there was a secret. Yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
But the red onesie is going to be helpful throughout this.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
thank god i have that onesie on um when did you become my mate said to give himself like a colonic like that's when you shoot the stuff up to loosen everything yes he had to do that in a hospital and then like lost control and they they said you could do it himself and he's like okay i'll do it but then was like on the floor of the bathroom in the hospital like cramping with why did they say do it yourself oh my god
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
That was for a role. I learned to ride bikes for a role. The first thing I did with Elle called Young Ones that Jake Paltrow directed with me and Elle and Cody Smith-McPhee and Michael Shannon. Great, great group. But yeah, my character rode motorcycles and that. So I learned to ride for that and then got into it for a little while and was riding a lot and
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Getting on track and all that sort of stuff. But I've kind of stopped. It started to feel a little bit, well, I fell off a few times. So that started to feel a little bit dangerous. And then I got more into car racing. So I've been doing more of that because it feels a little bit safer.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
You've got just some, you're in a cage. Yeah, you've got a whole roll cage, helmet. I mean, you wear a helmet, obviously, on the bikes, but you've also got this hands device. Have you heard of this? I think it stands for hands, head and neck saver. So it's like underneath your harness is this thing that then connects to your helmet to stop your head if you do crash from moving too far.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Yeah, I grew up watching it with my dad and racing with my dad and stuff. And he would like build cars as one of his hobbies. So I was always kind of interested and excited by them. So now I'm lucky where I got the opportunity to kind of go and race around a track. You just took, I mean, a serious course. What's the course that you just took? Oh, the Corsa Pelota, the Ferrari, yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
So now I'm kind of waiting, hopefully. I've done some of their track attacks at the Ferrari Challenge, and those have gone well, and then next will be the actual race. But the track attacks are when everyone's out there trying to set the fastest lap sort of thing time.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Well, I had a stick shift and I was like, okay, having fun.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Yeah, I got the fastest time. So, yeah. I don't know how to describe the feeling of it. It's something where it makes you very present, which you have to be. You have to be, right.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
And it's a weird mix between having a lot of adrenaline, but then having to kind of counteract that and calm yourself and be extremely focused for periods of time, where you're doing things that are against human instinct. Because like...
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
For instance, at the track where you're kind of coming up through turns two and three, and it's blind, and so you can't see where you're going, and you have to keep your foot pinned to the floor, and you're going about 130, 140 miles an hour. Accelerating into the curse, yes.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Yeah, and you're going up, you're turning left, but you can't see exactly where you're aiming to come out, and then there's walls on either side, so you're going through there at like 140 miles an hour. And it all goes well luckily for me this time and everything was fine.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
But there's a weird feeling where you're like half of the muscles in your leg are trying to pull up and stop you from doing it and the other half are like overriding it. To be like, no, you have to do that to get quick. And then it's, so there's, but then once you've done it once, you can do it again. And then you keep on building up and you start to get. Muscle memory. Muscle memory.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
And you start to just, you start to feel the car and it becomes, you don't become one with the car. That's such a stupid thing to say, but you start to.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Yeah, no, it's exactly that. But it's not going 100. But then it's flow state and it's kind of very meditative and it becomes, but let me ask you something then. So when you're about to make a joke or take a risk, Mm-hmm. how often do you doubt it before you do it?
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
No, no, no. I get what you're saying because when you were first talking about the Ford Taurus, I was in my head, I was reaching for some sort of joke about there being a condom on the gear stick. And it was there somewhere. And then I was like, oh, and then I thought about it too much. And I was like, this isn't the time or place. Let's just bury it.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
What's the one where it's like... I don't know. I broke up with my ex and someone says, why? And they go, oh, because I'm a Sagittarius and they're a cunt. Sorry, I probably can't say that. Beep that one out. No, you can say it. That used to be my favorite for a while.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Yeah, so I say... Apologies to anyone who's offended by that. Yeah. You can change that word for other words. Cun, cun, cun. It's fine. Hey, Sona! So unexpected.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
It was an unimpressive speed for you. They were sweaty anyway. I'm a bit of a pervert. Ever since the Taurus.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Which to me, I mean, you said you've done two... What is it? The fastest we went on track in the Ferrari Challenge car was 170, I think. Wow. Okay. But that's weirdly, everyone always says. I was pulling a trailer. The first thing I want to say.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
that's what everyone always asks though and they're like oh how fast do you go on track and a lot of the tracks you don't go that fast because the straights aren't that long and it's not and it's not the sitting going fast in a straight line that's the difficult bit anyway that's how everyone can put their foot to the floor and go up through gears it's the bit getting through the corners quickly which is the scary and difficult bit and how well the brakes work the first time using the brakes in a race car you'd like just kind of kick your foot to the brake as hard as you can
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
And they stop quick. It's impressive. But then trying to get that right whilst you're turning and releasing them. And then you go into the pits and they're like, look at your time. And they're like, well, this is why you were slow because you hit the brake one car length too early, but traveling at 170 miles an hour. So 0.1 tenths of a second, but then you didn't release it at the right pressure.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
So you lost... two tenths of a second and then this and this and suddenly you see why the details of it and I think that's one of the reasons I like it as well I've said this before but in acting and filmmaking there's lots of subjective things and in racing that's very objective they look at it and they go this is why you're slow so do that better and you'll be quick and you're like okay
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Let me ask you something. Career-wise, was there ever a measurement that you hoped to attain that you were like, oh, if I attain this or reach this or this happens, that'll be a good barometer of like, I'm good. I've done it. What was it?
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
You're going to keep... I mean, I guess if you go and win, it can get... Oh, that's right. To the trophy or something. You can win. But then, of course, that's... Then it's like you've got to do it again. It's like you've done it, you've got to do it again, or you've got to go to a different track and do it again. You've got to defend.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
I popped it, it didn't really squirt anywhere. And then I saw the other guy on the podium, like one of them like hit the bottle on the ground. So I kind of did that to try and get it to fizz, but it just kind of, a load fell out. And then it was like, oh, it was just all a bit of a mess. Because when you see people spraying champagne, it looks cool and awesome. I'm like, yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
I can do better. So I'm shaking it. I'm sticking my thumb in there. And by then, like, there's not enough in there. It's not fizzy enough.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Get your oil changed. No. No, I don't think so. I just get bored sitting on motorways, stop, start, and whatever. It's completely different. I like to think that maybe my reaction time and if something happened, my car control would be good. But luckily, I've never had to use it on the road.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Well, you know what? The reverse of that would be my wife was like, when we first met, she was like, oh, I love, she's from here. She was like, oh, I love rain. I love cloudy days, whatever. And I was like, oh, cool. And we were back in London for a while shooting some of The Great for six months. And I think it was rainy and cloudy and cold for most of that time.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
And she quickly realized that she didn't enjoy that. There's something about if you grow up in the sun where you kind of, have this romantic idea of rain and gray and cold and all this. But actually when you put her in it, she was like, no, this isn't.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
I like being in the sun. I mean, I miss London. I miss pubs and the theater and friends and a lot of the things about the lifestyle and being able to walk more places. So I do miss it. But I mean, the thing about my job is I'm always kind of on the road in different places. So I'm finding this a nice base at the moment.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Yeah, I will. In like alignment with Nosferatu coming out.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Didn't realize the French Revolution was so humorous. Yes. Benny Hill. French Revolution.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
I mean, I agree with you. I'm such a huge fan of his. I love his movies. I love the performances in his movies.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
um he is i think a real auteur filmmaker and and one of the greatest working and alive he's he's just and it's you know what i was thinking about this the other day as well he's so dedicated to the craft of filmmaking in terms of technically emotionally historically what he creates there were moments where he was like watching old films to try and figure out what was the best snow we could use because he shot all on all on film he's he's like you said the look is so important in terms of turning this story but he
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
So he was like, why is the snow good in these movies, but it's not good in these? And then he found like some old stock snow that isn't made anymore. Fake snow from the 90s or whatever. And they managed to locate just enough. That's asbestos. And I'm breathing this asbestos in and I'm like, God, this movie is beautiful. And it's worth it. There's a reason they don't use it anymore.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
So I was poisoning myself. God, it looks good on screen. He is like, yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
it's just his dedication to like the details of historically but also like exploring the occult and the emotional aspects of this story it's something he's wanted to make since he was 8 years old and there was a play of it he did at school so no one could have told it better what are the Eggers movies that you were really drawn to
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
I mean, The Witch was the first one I saw, and I met him after that, which I just thought, all his movies feel so real, which is kind of a weird thing, because I'm not necessarily a horror fan.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Oh, he's a master of creating tension. I think you're going to love that. I think I'm excited for you to see it because it's like the tension he creates, but it is visually stunning. And the score and the sound is like imposing and fills your bones.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
But then there's this weird thing where it's like, you're watching and you're like, you can't take your eyes away because it's like looking at a Rembrandt every scene, every shot. But then there's also this thing where you like don't want to look away because you're also, this is scary. Something's coming, something's happening. And it's
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
It's a really interesting exploration of kind of the evil that we all have within ourselves, but also externally coming and how that affects us. So I'm excited. I think it's a really good movie.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Yeah, in Wittsburg, Germany. So it's kind of a gothic tale, I guess. Yeah. But then, yeah, going back to his movies, of course, The Lighthouse, and Willem Dafoe's in this one as well. Him and Rob were so brilliant in that movie.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
What I'm saying is go check out the lighthouse. Get the costume on as well.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Oh, the costumes, Linda, the costumes that she created are all impeccable and stunning. But it is all that detail again. It's like his historical knowledge of everything going on. And because he leads from the front with such passion, everyone around just really wants to bring their best and do their best to serve his vision.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
But then I would text him thinking he'd be asleep about something in the middle of the night, in the middle of the day here, but which middle of the night in London. And he'd be like, oh, I'm up. I'm researching which cigars your character should smoke in this scene and whatever. He'd be like, dude, go to bed. It's 3 or 4 a.m. in London. What are you doing?
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
But he's just constantly so, so in the zone of what's right for the story in every minute. Smoking thousands of cigars.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Yeah. Oh, his performance is magic as well, because he's created, you know, this monster, Count Orlok, but he's given it such history and rooted in something very real. So, you know, it's terrifying. It's scary, but it's also amazing. It's also real.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
I don't like that. I don't like that. I always equate it to like when you're at school and you did a test and you're waiting for the results to come in. There's that nerve wracking feeling where you're like, ugh. And it depends also how you left the shoot in terms of how you, your overall feeling there. Like, did you feel like you gave a lot of variation on each scene in the edit?
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
If they want, they're going to have options. Did you feel like... you explored everything you could have done. And then that's a different feeling as opposed to if you walk away from something and you go, I think I missed a bit here or actually that could have been better. And suddenly then you're looking back and you're like, oh no.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
So it's an odd feeling waiting for something to come out and not something I look forward to particularly.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
Hi, my name is Nicholas Holt. And I feel truly happy about being Conan O'Brien's friend.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
I was thinking about friendship on the drive here. Were you really? Yeah. Well, I was thinking about how L.A. is quite a lonely town in many ways. Anyway, we don't have to get into it too deep. Well, no, we should, because you live in L.A. now. Yeah, well, technically down in Long Beach, yeah, so LBC.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
I do like Pasadena. Well, there's a Huntington Library and Gardens. Yeah, you want to be friends? Well, we don't go there anymore because it's too far now. I understand. I think I've lost control of this interview completely. Basically, I'm here looking for friends.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
It was a dream of a role because Tony McNamara's writing is so smart. And that was the thing. I kind of discovered that character along the way as everyone else did because he wrote the favorite as well that I was in. And then after that, he said, oh, I've got this other script. And it was at that point a feature script for The Great. And I'd worked with Elle before.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
He said he was going to ask Elle to play Catherine and she's wonderful as you know. And I knew I had a fantastic time working with her previously. So I was excited about all the components and then he turned it into a show. But when we started shooting, we only had like a couple of episodes, two or three episodes. So then it was kind of as we went, we would get more of the episodes as we shot.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
So it was kind of like, I'd read it and I'd be like, oh, this is terrible. Very funny, but terrible. Yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
horrible character right who's just punched his wife and all these things but then but then you'd start to eke out all the things that made him human and tick and the white the way the way he is and and how ridiculous he is in very humorous ways so it was kind of it was definitely all down to him his writing basically okay yes great writing but i thought you and l together one of my favorite couples i've seen on tv in memory and uh and also uh we had the best time
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
It's hilarious. A real foodie. Yeah, a real foodie. One of the redeeming things about him is his foodie nature, but also he's very open. It's exactly what you see is what you get. Yes. And I think that's one of the things that people can appreciate about him. It's not very common that you see someone who tells you exactly what they're thinking when they're thinking it.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
And that is truly incredible, his performance, because, you know, the characters aren't described. There's not, like, any of the bellowing and breathing and all those things that Douglas added. And I remember being in scenes with him when we first started shooting. You'd hear him constantly, like, swallowing his own burps and stuff. And none of that was in the script.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
It was just something that he brought to the character and was so hilarious that there were times that we had to, like, cut and stop scenes because the rest of us would be giggling so much at just how he...
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
That's the one, two, three, four. And breathing down the line.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
His recent one's coming out soon, right? Heretic? Heretic, yeah. I saw the trailer. It looks great. It looks amazing.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
I still think the other day I was thinking about, and I think a lot of my sense of humor probably stems down a little bit from him. Mm-hmm. And also just, you know, how he was on set. He was so dedicated to the work and professional and kind and good with everyone and just really, really deeply cared about doing a good job himself and making the film good.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Nicholas Hoult
And I think I couldn't have had a better experience at that sort of age in terms of just learning and watching people and being like, okay, this is how it's supposed to be and how it's supposed to be done.