Calgary Expo: Nicholas Hoult talks Mad Max, Lex Luthor and transitioning from child star to adult actor

When Nicholas Hoult took on the role of Nux in Mad Max: Fury Road, some of the prep work was a bit strange.

For anyone who has seen  the chaotic, super-charged 2015 blockbuster by George Miller, this may not be too surprising. At Calgary Expo Friday afternoon, Hoult stressed that the film — an exhilarating two-hours of high-octane stunts and car chases through a desert — did not have a chaotic set, of course.  Action scenes that are this over-the-top needs to be produced with precision. But some of the prep work the British actor did was a little strange when it came to Nux, the bald-headed, sickly warrior who finds his devotion to his boss Immortan Joe tested as he tries to help track down the warlord’s runaway wives.

Miller and actor Hugh Keays-Bryne, who played the imposing Immortan Joe, would gather some of the actors and 150 stunt people in a gym.

“We would sing nursery rhymes together and pray to Immortan Joe,” says Hoult. “He would put photos of himself up around the set. It was kind of like a cult, I suppose. Then you’d learn the different lingo and a way of communicate to people because obviously over the noise of the engine you couldn’t hear each other so you’d be banging on the roofs of the cars.”

Hoult’s hairless, emaciated character is meant to be sick, presumably due to the living in a radioactive wasteland. So Miller asked him to lose weight. When cameras rolled, Hoult had shed 27 pounds. Again, the prep work for this seems a little off the wall.

He would watch the Food Network show Chopped, which has competitors cooking various meals, as he worked out.

“It was kind of like torture,” he said. “I would jump rope watching Chopped. I’d be like ‘That looks so good! I’m so hungry!’ ”

Playing Nux was one of many milestones for Hoult that helped establish the former child actor as someone capable of taking on a wide variety of character roles. While Hoult has done indie films — including the Calgary-shot thriller The Order that had him playing real-life white supremacist Bob Mathews — he is also known for participating in franchise blockbusters and cult films, which makes him a perfect guest for a fan convention. Since entering the spotlight as the socially awkward 12-year-old in 2002’s About A Boy, Hoult has played brave soldier Eusebios in Clash of the Titans, a lovestruck zombie in Warm Bodies, X-Men member Beast in numerous Marvel Universe films, Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien in the biopic Tolkien and Thomas Hutter in last year’s Nosferatu. In July, he will make his debut as another iconic character when he plays supervillain Lex Luthor in the umpteenth remake of Superman.

Hoult is one of the rare actors who has been able to make the transition from child star to successful adult actor.

“Everyone talks about child actors and the pitfalls of it,” he said. “You’re aware that maybe you’ve had a little bit of success in a career that maybe you want to do. I felt like i wanted to do it quite early on because I really love doing this. I was also aware of how it doesn’t work out for a lot of child actors. So I was kind of reserved about it and a little bit scared of it. There was a good chance that I don’t get to do this and my career has peaked at 11. So that was always, I guess, fuel to work hard and keep my head down and try to keep focused.”

Hoult actually auditioned to play the Man of Steel in James Gunn’s Superman reboot, but lost the role to David Corenswet.

“I actually read the script while I was in Calgary shooting the Order,” he said. “The first time I read it, I loved the story and the world that Jim created, it was so rich and full and exciting and different. There were moments when I was reading through some of the Lex scenes and I said maybe I’d be good at those scenes. But then I quickly squashed that.”

He heard from Gunn a few weeks after auditioning for Superman.

“James called me and said ‘How about playing Lex Luthor?’ ” Hoult says. “I cackled. I kind of evilly cackled, I suppose, because I realized the instinct I had when I was in the little kitchen when I was here, that little instinct that said ‘Oh I think you’d make a better Lex in this version of the story and you were right. You kind of dimmed your intuition, but if actually you had listened you knew this was where you supposed to be in this film.”

Calgary Expo runs until Sunday at the BMO Centre.