Fast Five with Will Poulter

Leonardo DiCaprio is not the only star performer in The Revenant. This British actor is quite the scene-stealer too.

Feb 03, 2016 06:00 am

FACTFILE

NAME William Jack Poulter

BORN Jan 28, 1993, Hammersmith, London  

FILMOGRAPHY

Son Of Rambow (2007), The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader (2010), We're the Millers (2013), The Maze Runner (2014), The Revenant (2015)

1. BRIT HIT

Mark Lee (left) and Peter Yu in Wonderland.

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This 23-year-old could be the next big British actor if he plays his cards right. He bagged the Bafta Rising Star Award in 2014 for his work on the comedy We're The Millers. Another sign that Poulter's coming up? He was among the front-row celebrities at Lanvin's menswear show in Paris on Jan 24.

2. STARSTRUCK

He plays plucky frontiersman Jim Bridger in Alejandro G. Inarritu's revenge thriller The Revenant, which opens here tomorrow. Acting opposite the film's leads Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy was both "wonderful" and "educational". Poulter told The Toronto Star: "Initially it was very, very intimidating because they're so experienced and talented. But there was no room for fear. There was no place for my anxieties to operate, and if there were anxieties or fear, they kind of played into the scene."

3. HARSH CONDITIONS

Poulter doesn't mind suffering for his art and suffer he did on The Revenant: Shooting in temperatures as low as minus 40 deg C, trekking half a day to remote filming locations and having only a few hours a day to shoot because short daylight. "A lot has been made of the weather conditions and how 'gruelling' it was, but there is a small part of you that appreciates how much it reduced the acting challenge," Poulter told Hunger magazine. "When you needed to act cold, that was taken care of for you. When you needed to act exhausted, you genuinely were."

4. MASTER KISSER

Poulter locked lips with Emma Roberts and Jennifer Aniston in We're The Millers (2013), in which his virgin character Kenny learns to kiss from his fake sister (Roberts) and fake mother (Aniston). "It's setting the bar quite high, really. It's downhill for Ken from there and me. I don't see myself kissing Jennifer again," Poulter told YouTube channel ODE. He won an MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss in 2014 for that very scene.

6. HIP-HOP HOORAY

Poulter counts US hip-hop stars Kendrick Lamar and Eminem among his favourite musicians. He thinks he resembles The Real Slim Shady rapper. "I spent two hours walking around New York trying to get my Eminem impression down. It's a mission," he once tweeted. Poulter admires Eminem so much, he has expressed his desire to play him in a biopic. "That would be my dream role," Poulter told The Toronto Star. "I guess I should start rehearsing, so at least I can attempt to audition."