Nicholas Hoult Says It Was 'Horrible' Delivering White Supremacist Speech inThe Order(Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Nicholas Hoult at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of ‘The Order’ on Sept. 8.Photo:Olivia Wong/Getty

Olivia Wong/Getty

Nicholas Houltis opening up about the “horrible” task of playing a white supremacist in his new movie.

The Order, which screened at theToronto International Film Festivalon Sunday, Sept. 8 following its premiere in Venice, stars the English actor, 34, as real-life American neo-Nazi leader Bob Matthews.

“All the core ideas that Bob Mathews stands for are horrendous,” Hoult tells PEOPLE exclusively. “Obviously, it’s horrible.”

But, he adds, delivering Matthews' hateful rhetoric required a focus on the storyThe Orderwas telling. “That’s always something that as an actor you have to put aside for a moment, to try and be authentic to the moment of the scene.”

Nicholas Hoult in ‘The Order’.Michelle Faye

Michelle Faye

“Justin’s a fantastic director,” says Hoult. “And he gives such wonderful notes in terms of making things unexpected when you approach difficult scenes and bringing humanity to characters where you wouldn’t normally expect it. So that was the wonderful thing.”

To convincingly recreate Mathews’ ugly rhetoric, continues theMad Max: Fury Roadstar, he needed Baylin’s “script that was very balanced” and Kurzel’s directing notes “that make you feel like you can focus almost elsewhere in terms of what the character would be feeling in those moments.”

(Left-right:) Nicholas Hoult, Jurnee Smollett, Tye Sheridan and Jude Law at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 8.Sonia Recchia/Getty

Sonia Recchia/Getty

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The Orderbecame resonant for Smollett after she interviewed former special agents who worked to counteract white supremacy. “It was so profound to hear over and over again how much these sort of cases were personal for them.”

(Left-right:) Justin Kurzel, Jurnee Smollett, Tye Sheridan, Jude Law, Zach Baylin, Bryan Haas and Nicholas Hoult at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 8.Gareth Cattermole/Getty

Gareth Cattermole/Getty

Law, 51, agrees. The movie’s FBI agent characters all “give something up” for the cause, he says. “There’s a familial thread to this piece, or an underbelly, which I think it comes through and makes it more effective, I think.”

source: people.com