George MacKay: 1917, Captain Fantastic, Femme and Sense and Sensibility

George MacKay was turned down by both RADA and LAMDA, and later played the lead in a war film that received 10 Oscar nominations. [1] [2] He was born in London in 1992, the son of a stage manager and lighting specialist and a costume designer, and his father is Australian. [1] He attended The Harrodian School in West London, where a talent scout found him. [1]

A child actor in Peter Pan

His first film role was Curly, one of the Lost Boys, in P. J. Hogan's 2003 Peter Pan. [1] The shoot lasted six months in Australia. [1] The sources disagree on his age at the time: NME says he was 11 when he was cast, while Spotlight says he was 10. [1] [3] Spotlight adds that he began taking acting seriously after leaving school, following a job with the actor Eddie Marsan, whose way of working inspired him. [3] Marsan is the mentor he names, from the period drama Best of Men. [1]

The next years were not a straight line. He was rejected by RADA and LAMDA, and he auditioned for Game of Thrones and for Justin Kurzel's Macbeth without getting either part. [1] Of the Game of Thrones audition he told GQ Hype: "I gave it my best, but I did not get it." [10]

The credits that followed built the career quietly. Spotlight lists Tommo Peaceful in Private Peaceful, Eddie in How I Live Now and Aaron in For Those in Peril. [3] For the last of these he won the BAFTA Scotland award for Best Actor in 2012. [3] On Pride he played a young man in the closet and learned, he said, from Andrew Scott and Bill Nighy. [1] On How I Live Now he worked with Saoirse Ronan. [1]

Captain Fantastic

In Matt Ross's Captain Fantastic, which premiered at Sundance in Park City in January 2016, MacKay played the eldest son of Viggo Mortensen's character. [5] TheWrap called him the film's standout and wrote that he "steals it". [5] The role asked a lot of him. Ross wrote the eldest son as a boy becoming a man, a first-kiss romantic lead, a grieving son and a stand-in parent. [5] TheWrap also reported that the Sundance audience cheered when his name appeared in the end credits. [5]

1917 and the Ned Kelly role

MacKay played Lance Corporal William Schofield in Sam Mendes' 1917, a soldier who tries to deliver a message that could stop an attack. [2] The film received 10 Oscar nominations and won three. [2] He told W Magazine that it was his breakthrough and his first big studio press tour. [2] The Irish News noted that the film had nine BAFTA nominations and that it was shot and edited to look like one continuous take. [10] MacKay said that in such a film one mistake ruins the whole scene, calling the feeling "a terrible, terrible feeling" while adding that "everyone was very supportive." [10] He attended the Academy Awards, his first Oscars invitation. [1] On the war film's appeal he said: "War is one of the few massive communal things we all understand or have access to." [1]

The timing was awkward. "Ironically, the longest time I've not worked was when we were promoting that film," he told W Magazine, because the pandemic closed the industry after the awards run. [2]

He was also Ned Kelly in Justin Kurzel's True History of the Kelly Gang, based on Peter Carey's 2000 novel. [1] Earlier screen versions of the bushranger featured Mick Jagger in 1970 and Heath Ledger in 2003. [1] MacKay's preparation took about three months of chopping wood, riding horses and farm work in Australia, plus clay pigeon shooting with Russell Crowe. [1] The cast, which included Earl Cave, Sean Keenan and Jacob Collins-Levy, also formed a punk band. [1] The film reached UK cinemas on 28 February 2020. [1] Kurzel, MacKay said, focused on the spirit of the men rather than exact history, and some of the emotional work "broke me open in a way I haven't been." [1]

Femme and The Beast

MacKay shot two dark roles almost back to back in the summer of 2022. [2] In Femme, directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, he played Preston, a closeted gay man whose internalised homophobia leads him to assault a drag performer, Jules, played by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. [2] He bulked up for the part and worked with the hair and makeup team on Preston's look, including his tattoos. [2] At the 2023 British Independent Film Awards, MacKay and Stewart-Jarrett shared the prize for Best Joint Lead Performance for Femme. [4]

In Bertrand Bonello's The Beast, loosely based on Henry James's 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle, he played Louis opposite Léa Seydoux across three timelines, 1910, 2014 and 2044. [2] MacKay said he knew little about incel culture before signing on and was "mindful of the ramifications" of the words the film uses. [2] On playing violent characters he said: "You have to understand or empathize with whatever your character is doing." [2] He also said becoming a parent changed how he chooses roles. [2] W Magazine reported that he has two children. [2]

Recent roles

Mark Jenkin's Rose of Nevada gave him the part of Nick, who joins the crew of a returned fishing boat to support his young family, alongside Callum Turner. [8] The BFI lists festival showings at Venice and Toronto. [8]

In Georgia Oakley's Sense and Sensibility he plays Edward Ferrars, Elinor's love interest, with Daisy Edgar-Jones as Elinor. [7] [11] Screen Daily reviewed the 131-minute film on 24 September 2026, as its international roll-out began. [7] Country & Town House describes it as the first screen adaptation of Austen's first-published novel since Ang Lee's 1995 version. [11]

Paul Wright's Mission, in which he plays Dylan, a man who gives himself one week to live fully before he dies, had its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on 15 August 2026. [9] W Magazine also named The End, Joshua Oppenheimer's musical with Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon about the last family on Earth in a bunker, as his next project in 2024. [2]

Asked how he picks work, MacKay called it mostly gut instinct and said: "I'm just a fan of cinema." [2]