Archie Renaux

From Air Conditioning to Netflix

Archie Renaux didn't always have the clean-cut look of a fictional hero. In 1997, he was born in Kingston upon Thames and spent part of his youth working for an air conditioning company. That manual job ended when he enrolled at the Unseen Acting School in London to try his luck at acting.

And he left the workshop.

In 2019, he landed his first major role in the miniseries Gold Digger. There he shared the screen with Ben Barnes (an actor he would cross paths with again shortly after) and showed that his physical presence suited British television. His salary back then was far from the figures he would earn just two years later.

In 2021, Shadow and Bone premiered. He played Malyen Oretsev for two seasons until the platform canceled the series in 2023. But before the project faded into obscurity, the series reached 55 million viewers in its first month on air.

Anonymity ended overnight.

During filming of the first season in Hungary, he had to learn to handle weapons and ride horses in freezing temperatures. The contract required a level of realism that CGI couldn't provide in the forests near Budapest. So Renaux spent months training with specialists to avoid using stunt doubles in the dangerous scenes.

A Haven for Science Fiction

Movies came calling with Voyagers in 2021 and a brief role in Morbius during 2022. In the latter film he played Bobby and shared the set with Jared Leto. Although the movie suffered constant delays due to the global health crisis of 2020, his involvement helped him understand how the major Hollywood studios operate.

In 2022, he also appeared in The Greatest Beer Run Ever alongside Zac Efron. The Apple TV production allowed him to move away from teen fantasy and try a more dramatic, war-focused tone. But his big break on the big screen would come two years later.

In 2024, he worked under Uruguayan director Fede Álvarez on Alien: Romulus. Playing Tyler was a major physical challenge due to the use of practical effects and animatronics instead of green screens. Filming took place mainly at Origo Studios in Budapest during the spring of 2023.

The industry bought into him.

His role in this installment of the space horror franchise required him to shoot zero-gravity sequences wearing an uncomfortable harness during twelve-hour days. And the box office result validated his choice as one of the young faces with the greatest commercial appeal in the Anglo-American market.

The Budapest Figure

Out of the spotlight, he keeps a fairly private life in London. In 2020, he announced the birth of his daughter Iris (with Annie O'Hara) and since then he has tried to balance international promotion with family life. He rarely attends parties or events that aren't strictly tied to his work contracts.

In 2024, he starred in the romantic comedy Upgraded alongside Camila Mendes. The film was shot in London and performed well on the direct-to-streaming market. His interest, however, seems to lie in productions with bigger technical budgets and greater physical demands.

Before filming, he reads the script looking for details that help him move away from his own personality. Archie Renaux is 1.85 meters tall and has Indian ancestry on his mother's side. His contract for Alien: Romulus included a 14-page confidentiality clause about the creatures' design.