Since graduating from London drama school ArtsEd in 2019, Jay Lycurgo has barely stopped to take a breath.
Among other things, he has won a small role in Matt Reeves’ The Batman, played Tim Drake (aka Robin) in HBO Max superhero show Titans, led Netflix’s Joe Barton-scripted YA horror series The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself and landed a key role in Ben Wheatley’s upcoming small-screen zombie satire Generation Z. “I feel like I’ve gone through this incredible rollercoaster of acting,” says the Croydon-born actor.
Lycurgo has typically been cast younger than his years — he is now 26 — including in Generation Z and two upcoming films, time-travel romance Eternal Return and vampire-family comedy The Radleys. “Hey, I’m not gonna moan that I’ve got a baby face,” he says, with a grin. “But there will come a time that I play older roles, and when it does, then it’s all good.”
Besides, he adds, “I enjoy playing teenagers because they haven’t been beaten down by life yet. And there’s also a subtext going on with them — they haven’t had the experience to articulate themselves, and you can play with that.”
As a boy, Lycurgo imagined playing in a very different way: with a football, professionally, like his father David Johnson, who played striker for Jamaica. But by the age of 17, says Lycurgo, “I realised I wasn’t passionate about football anymore. When I started falling on the floor and acting out an injury, I thought, ‘Hold up, there’s something here.’” He enjoyed the thrill of performing on stage, too, drawn away from the pitch and towards drama school.
These days, though, it is more than the thrill that compels him to act. “I like to be a part of things that are honest and real and vulnerable,” says Lycurgo. “I also love to work with directors that have a great vision and are bringing their own personality into a project.”
He has been particularly impressed by Wheatley in this regard. “I love Ben,” says Lycurgo. “He’s just… himself. Generation Z was very improv-based, so he’s given me a lot of confidence going forward.”
Confident enough that Lycurgo has ambitions beyond acting. “I would love to direct and produce one day, 100%,” he reveals. “I do believe I have an eye for making something pure and good. When I’ve been doing this long enough, I’d love to try my hand at it. I’m so up for that.”
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