Douglas John Booth is an English actor.
He first came to public attention following his performance as Boy George in the BBC Two
film Worried About the Boy.
He also starred in the BBC adaptations of Great Expectations and Christopher and His
Kind.
In 2013, Booth starred in Carlo Carlei's film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.
In 2014, he appeared in Darren Aronofsky's Noah, and will star in The Wachowskis' Jupiter
Ascending and Lone Scherfig's The Riot Club.
Early life Douglas John Booth was born in London, England.
He is the son of Vivien, a painter, and Simon Booth, a shipping finance consultant; he was
previously managing director of both CitiGroup and Deutsche Bank's shipping finance divisions.
Booth's father is of English descent, and his mother is of half Spanish and half Dutch
ancestry.
His older sister, Abigail, is a Chelsea School of Art graduate.
Booth was raised in Greenwich, London but moved to Sevenoaks, Kent at the age of ten.
He was largely privately educated, attending Solefield School, Bennett Memorial Diocesan
School and Lingfield Notre Dame School.
Booth is severely dyslexic and found it "very hard" to read or write up until the age of
ten; he remains "a really slow reader."
He struggled at school, "having to put in double or triple the amount of effort as everyone
else," but said the condition made him "more resilient in every sense."
He played the trumpet as a child.
Booth developed an interest in drama at the age of twelve, after starring in a school
production of Agamemnon: "I found myself feeling really engaged for the first time ... I thought,
'I rather like being the centre of attention.
This is where I want to be.'"
By the age of thirteen, he was involved with the National Youth Theatre and the Guildhall
School of Music and Drama.
Booth joined the Curtis Brown acting agency at the age of fifteen.
He won his first professional acting role at the age of sixteen and quit his AS levels
in drama, media studies and English literature.
Career Booth's first professional role was in the
children's adventure film From Time to Time, directed by Julian Fellowes and starring Maggie
Smith and Timothy Spall.
Following the film's release, Booth signed to the UTA talent agency for American-based
representation.
He then had a minor role as Prince Eustace in the Channel 4 miniseries The Pillars of
the Earth, a medieval saga filmed in Budapest with Ian McShane and Donald Sutherland.
Also in 2009 and 2010, Booth modelled in several Mario Testino-shot campaigns for the luxury
fashion label Burberry; he starred in the Fall 2009 campaign with Emma Watson, the Fall
2010 campaign with Rosie Huntington Whiteley, and the Burberry Sport fragrance campaign
with Lily Donaldson.
Booth rose to prominence in 2010 following his performance as the pop star Boy George
in the BBC Two drama Worried About the Boy.
He underwent a physical transformation for the role, shaving off his eyebrows and wearing
heavy makeup.
Booth met Boy George during filming, with the singer remarking: "He just gets it.
There's something about him that reminds me of me when I was 17."
Howard Male of The Arts Desk was reminded of Cillian Murphy's performance in Breakfast
on Pluto and praised the "emotional resonance" Booth brought to "his occasionally uncannily
accurate portrayal of George."
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Ceri Radford said Booth delivered a "mesmerising" performance:
"He offered a convincing portrayal of O’Dowd as a beautiful young man who oozed ambiguous
sex appeal and protected his feelings with a carapace of prickly wit."
Mike Higgins of The Independent declared Booth "a discovery": "Moving, witty, he also got
the singer's wheezy enunciation down pat."
Booth next played the role of Pip in the BBC One adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations,
alongside Gillian Anderson and Ray Winstone.
Broadcast over the Christmas period, the miniseries was a huge ratings success.
Anne Billson of The Telegraph felt it was a misstep to cast someone "so distractingly
lovely" in the role of Pip: "It’s not that Douglas Booth was bad, it’s just that one
can’t imagine Dickens ever intended Pip to be more beautiful than Estella, who, after
all, has been brought up to break men’s hearts."
Mike Hale of The New York Times dismissed Booth as "a CW-style actor whose exceptionally
pretty face doesn't convey much beyond puzzlement and petulance."
Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times found the actor's performance "haunting" while Emma
Jones of The Huffington Post dismissed the "debate over the extreme prettiness of Douglas
Booth", arguing that "Booth's beauty is only a backdrop to Pip's naivety."
Also in 2011, Booth appeared in the BBC film Christopher and His Kind, which explored novelist
Christopher Isherwood's formative years in Thirties Berlin.
He played Heinz, a German street-sweeper who became the lover of Matt Smith's Isherwood.
In 2012, Booth starred opposite Miley Cyrus and Demi Moore in the teen drama LOL.
He witnessed the paparazzi interest surrounding co-star Cyrus during filming: "It was bizarre
and, interestingly, not at all glamorous."
Filmed in 2010, when Booth was seventeen, the movie received a very limited theatrical
release and unfavourable reviews.
Later that year, Booth read selected extracts from David Copperfield as part of Sky Arts's
In Love With Dickens documentary; other contributors included Simon Callow and Miriam Margoyles.
In 2013, Booth starred opposite Hailee Steinfeld in Carlo Carlei's film adaptation of Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet.
Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times praised Booth's memorable performance: "It's not so
much that he makes a great Romeo; frankly DiCaprio's was better in Luhrmann's version,
as was Leonard Whiting in Zeffirelli's … But it has been a while since a camera has so
loved a face ... If anything, the movies in general are too intent on reducing Booth to
that singular feature, when he is actually a fine actor."
R. Kurt Osenlund of Slant felt that Booth gives "a rather fantastic breakthrough performance,
offering a poignant interpretation of one of literature's greatest lovers."
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle bemoaned the poor casting of Steinfeld: "And
this is especially a shame because Douglas Booth as Romeo is quite good and could have
been better, if only he had someone to play off of.
It's almost pitiful to see him here, trying to inject emotion and wit into his scenes
with Steinfeld, who is a blank wall."
Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter remarked that Booth "seems to have a grasp of what
he's saying and behaves in credibly laddish fashion ... but Booth's vocal range is very
narrow, and he speaks in a monotone."
Claudia Puig of USA Today found Booth "more skilled" than Steinfeld "in the passionate
intonation department" while The Independent's Geoffrey MacNab asserted that Booth "shows
a certain star quality."
In March 2014, he appeared as Shem in Darren Aronofsky's biblical epic Noah.
Emma Watson played his character's wife; she first met Booth while shooting a Burberry
fashion campaign in 2009: "There's something old-mannish about Doug, which he had even
then.
He knows who he is.
He doesn't get intimidated, doesn't hold back, and is generally fearless."
In July, he will appear in The Wachowskis's science-fiction film Jupiter Ascending, starring
Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum and Eddie Redmayne.
"They're just the most original people," Booth has said of the Wachowskis.
"They've created something very exciting and special and bonkers."
Finally, in September, Booth will star alongside Sam Claflin, Max Irons and Freddie Fox in
the black comedy The Riot Club, directed by Lone Scherfig.
Based on the stage play by Laura Wade, the ensemble piece centres around ten members
of an exclusive Oxford University dining club known as The Riot Club, based on the real-life
Bullingdon Club.
Booth made "friends for life" during the film shoot, and has said of the characters: "When
you meet these sort of guys, they're always so charming.
It's almost more discomfiting for the audience to be charmed by them, to like them a lot,
and to see how far they'll go with them."
Personal life Booth shares an apartment with his sister,
Abi, in Bermondsey, London.
Filmography References
External links Douglas Booth at the Internet Movie Database
Douglas Booth at Curtis Brown Evening Standard interview