Jonah Hauer-King

A Legacy of Tables and Stages

Jonah Hauer-King has dual British and American citizenship. He was born in London in 1995 and spent much of his adolescence watching his father run the legendary restaurant The Ivy. That constant exposure to public life gave him an unusual calm in front of the camera.

His mother is Debra Hauer, a producer who later trained as a therapist. From her, he learned that acting means understanding other people's trauma. In 2017, he finished his studies in Theology and Religious Studies at Cambridge while already looking for his first professional roles.

He is not a conventional method actor.

In 2017 he juggled his final university exams with filming The Last Photograph. That film, starring Danny Huston, was his first real contact with independent cinema. Before that, he had only performed on stage in small independent theaters in London.

And his move into film paid off quickly.

From Period Drama to a Disney Budget

His role in the series World on Fire in 2019 gave him visibility in the international market. He played a translator who becomes a soldier during World War II. The shoot spanned several European countries and forced him to learn dialogue in several languages under pressure.

In 2023, the project that transformed his public profile arrived. Disney chose him to play Prince Eric in the live-action version of The Little Mermaid. He had to train for months for the sea action scenes and practice singing intensively at Pinewood Studios.

But massive success did not change his selection criteria. Despite the fame that comes with a blockbuster of that scale, the actor chose to return to projects with a heavier political and social weight. In 2024, he took the lead role in the miniseries The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

For this role, he had to lose a considerable amount of weight and shave his head. Playing Lale Sokolov meant facing the true story of a Jewish prisoner in a concentration camp. Filming took place mainly in Bratislava during the winter.

New Directions in British Television

In 2025, he officially joined the world of Doctor Who. His casting was announced as one of the pillars of the second season of Ncuti Gatwa's era. He will play a character connected to Ruby Sunday in a storyline that was kept under absolute secrecy for months.

His strategy is to alternate prestige television with large-scale films. In 2024, he also took part in the shoot of The Threesome, a comedy that breaks with his usual image as a romantic hero or a suffering historical figure.

Filming of his scenes for the BBC concluded in May 2024 at the Wolf Studios in Wales.