Aaron Taylor-Johnson

The Kid Who Didn't Want to Be a Teen Star

Aaron Perry Taylor-Johnson was born in 1990 in a gray town in Buckinghamshire. By age six, he was already on a stage in London. He wasn't looking for fame, but the industry found him fast through auditions and TV commercials.

Aaron Johnson was not yet twenty when he put on the glasses of John Lennon. It was in 2009. That shoot for Nowhere Boy defined his personal and professional life in one stroke.

Before that, he took on smaller productions. In 2006 he appeared in The Thief Lord, and in 2008 he starred in Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. These were roles for British teenagers trying to find their place in cinemas.

His marriage to Sam Taylor-Wood in 2012 made more noise in the tabloid press than his own work. He was 18 years old when they met, and she was 42. They decided to combine their last names, and he has been signing as Aaron Taylor-Johnson ever since.

But movies don't care about gossip when there's talent behind them.

From green tights to Hollywood steel

In 2010 he arrived in Kick-Ass. It was a superhero movie unlike anything Marvel was cooking up at the time. Aaron played an ordinary teen who takes brutal beatings for trying to be a hero.

That success opened the doors to major franchises. In 2012, he worked under Joe Wright in Anna Karenina. There he played Count Vronsky and showed he could wear period costume as naturally as a green wetsuit.

Then came the roar of giant monsters. In 2014 he starred in the reboot of Godzilla, and in 2015 he joined the Marvel universe with Avengers: Age of Ultron. His character died soon after.

He didn't care much.

The dry recognition of 2016

His real transformation came in 2016 with Nocturnal Animals. Tom Ford cast him as a psychopathic Texan who was genuinely frightening. It was a dirty, violent role that broke with his image as a magazine cover heartthrob.

He won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for that role. It surprised many critics who still saw him as an actor of empty blockbusters. But Taylor-Johnson prefers to choose projects based on the director rather than the paycheck.

In 2022 he shared the screen with Brad Pitt in Bullet Train. His chemistry with Brian Tyree Henry was the best part of a frantic movie shot entirely on a Los Angeles soundstage.

And so his pace goes on.

The Shadow of James Bond

For 2024, rumors about his casting as the new 007 flooded newsrooms around the world. Eon Productions was looking for a physical presence with experience, but not an unreachable star. He ticked every box.

While the world speculated, Aaron kept working quietly. In May 2024 he premiered The Fall Guy alongside Ryan Gosling. He played a capricious action star who disappears in the middle of a shoot in Australia.

In December 2024, Nosferatu hits theaters, directed by Robert Eggers. It's a gothic production in which he plays Friedrich Harding. The budget for Kraven the Hunter, his other big bet of 2024, surpassed $130 million.