Finn Cole

The Audition That Was Recorded in a Bedroom

Finn Cole did not go through the classrooms of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. While his contemporaries rehearsed Shakespeare classics under Victorian ceilings, he recorded a homemade audition in his bedroom in Kingston upon Thames. His older brother, Joe Cole, was already part of the cast of Peaky Blinders and told him they were looking for a boy to play Polly Gray's lost son.

The film convinced the producers immediately.

In 2014, he arrived on the set in Birmingham to shoot the second season of the BBC series. What began as a supporting role as a young accountant turned into the main antagonist of the Shelby family. He worked side by side with Cillian Murphy for nearly a decade. But Finn Cole never wanted to be just someone's little brother in the credits.

And the gamble paid off.

Breaking into American Prime Time

In 2016, he crossed the Atlantic to star in Animal Kingdom. Playing Joshua Cody forced him to perfect a dry California accent and shoot on location in Oceanside. The series ran until 2022 and allowed him to explore a far more physical range than the British gangsters he had played. Because in Hollywood, production schedules are different, and the work pace at a network like TNT leaves no room for distractions.

That shoot gave him the experience he needed to hold his own in scenes opposite a veteran like Ellen Barkin. He managed to keep the absolute spotlight across 75 episodes without losing his grip on the plot. As a result, his name started to come up in casting offices at major Los Angeles studios as a solid option for live-action projects.

Before wrapping up his time on American television, he was already looking for openings in independent film.

Shoots Under Pressure and Water Tanks

In 2019, he shared the screen with Margot Robbie in the crime drama Dreamland. It was his first major film opportunity outside of television, where he got to handle the weight of a romantic and violent storyline. Two years later, in 2021, he joined the Fast & Furious franchise, playing a younger version of John Cena's character. His appearance in the ninth installment of the saga grossed more than 700 million dollars worldwide.

The British industry called him back for the Netflix thriller Locked In, released in 2023. On this production he worked alongside Famke Janssen in a psychological suspense setting that was a far cry from the gunfire of his earlier roles. But the real technical challenge came with his next major survival project.

In 2025, he shot Last Breath under the direction of the technical team in underwater settings. It is an underwater survival film shot largely in deep-water tanks to simulate the North Sea. The production budget exceeded 35 million dollars.