The young actor Joseph Quinn - known to the general public for his role in the Netflix TV series &quot;Stranger Things&quot; - confides in his greatest pleasure (&quot;diving into freezing water&quot;), the thing that bothers him the most (&quot;snails&quot;) and also talks about his growing celebrity (&quot;it&#39;s disgusting to talk about, damn it&quot;).

Text by LAUREN LARSON Photography DANNY KASIRYE Styling MAC HUELSTER

Joseph Quinn &#39;s pupils are large and dark brown, so much so that they can sometimes appear dilated. Fans have nicknamed him &quot;chocolate button eyes.&quot; Yet when I ask him if he agrees that his eyes are his most distinctive feature, the actor responds: “I would never call any of my characteristics distinctive… But yeah, I think it was pretty clear from a young age that I couldn’t lie very well. My eyes give me away.” At the time of the interview, Quinn has just wrapped up a day on the set of the next “Fantastic Four” movie in which he will play Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, and he seems energized. He’s on his way to London to see “Longlegs,” starring Nicolas Cage and Maika Monroe. Has he noticed that more people recognize him when he’s out and about in London now? “It’s so fucking disgusting to talk about,” he says. Then, again, he softens when asked: “But yeah, when a project you’re doing is out, I think you’re — sadly, these days — on more people’s phones, so they’re more aware of you. Then the next thing comes out, and then it’s good again. It goes up and down.”

In 2023, he appeared in a small independent film, &quot;Hoard,&quot; but this year he seems to be everywhere. In June, he starred opposite Lupita Nyongo in &quot;A Quiet Place: Day One,&quot; a prequel to the hit series started by John Krasinski and Emily Blunt. He’ll next play one of two emperors in “Gladiator II,” out in November, followed by roles in “The Fantastic Four” (in theaters July 25, 2025) and Alex Garland’s “Warfare.” Those who didn’t recognize Quinn after his turn as Eddie Munson in <a href="https://www.lofficielitalia.com/pop-culture/stranger-things-5-uscita-teaser-quando-esce-serie-tv-netflix" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Stranger Things”</a> in 2022 will surely recognize him by 2025. Quinn seems poised to follow the trajectories of other actors he admires: Cate Blanchett, Olivia Colman, Willem Dafoe, Nyongo, Jesse Plemons. “I’m not chasing any particular level of fame,” he says. “It’s a matter of opportunities that interest me, and I guess I’ve gotten used to the fact that I have a little more choice now, which is a real luxury. That choice will come and go and vary, and [I have to] surrender to the idea that there’s very little in my control here. But with a little discipline and discernment, I can maybe now tailor the opportunities to my own. tastes, which is very exciting.” It can be hard to draw the line between a film like “Hoard,” which Quinn describes as “really wild” — his character, Michael, and a foster teen (Saura Lightfoot-Leon) engage with each other with a mutual ferocity; in one jarring scene, he presses an iron to her stomach — Quinn says he was drawn to “Hoard” because he was excited about the talent involved, particularly director Luna Carmoon, and because it would be filmed in south London, where he grew up. For “A Quiet Place: Day One,” he was also excited (and initially intimidated) to work with Nyong’o and writer-director Michael Sarnoski. That role, too, is imbued with ferocity.

Quinn’s character is Eric, an Englishman stranded in New York City during the genesis of an invasion of monsters that locate their prey by sound. We meet him when he bursts through a flooded subway stairwell with an intensity that startled some viewers at the screening I attended. For much of the film, Eric conveys horror without words. But, as with his performance in “Hoard,” Eric’s role is complicated by moments of tenderness and vulnerability. Quinn is extremely cautious about sharing any information about “Gladiator II” because Paramount might sanction it. Quinn, who plays the sadistic, heavily eyelinered Emperor Geta, knew “Gladiator II” would be a risk. <a href="https://www.lofficielitalia.com/pop-culture/sanremo-2024-russell-crowe-film-vita-privata-band-eta-chi-e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“I saw it when I was about 12 or 13 and was mesmerized by it,”</a> he says. “This kind of cinema isn’t made all the time. Ridley Scott is very good, and I was aware that approaching that world again was something that some people would not like. I agree that it is a masterpiece, and sometimes it is better to leave these things alone.

Still, he wouldn’t have turned down his role in the film, or any role that put him close to Denzel Washington . “I couldn’t have turned down that opportunity.” He was reassured by the script and his castmates, who, in addition to Washington, include Pedro Pascal (“wonderful and kind”), <a href="https://www.lofficielitalia.com/uomo/gucci-horsebit-mocassino-paul-mescal-xiao-zhan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Paul Mescal</a> (“very Irish”) and Connie Nielsen, who reprises her role as Lucilla from the original film. Quinn has a string of enviable roles ahead of him, and I ask if there were times when it felt like too much. The short answer is no; the long answer is absolutely not. He’d wanted to act since he was a teenager. He applied to drama school and was accepted into the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He’d never spent much time around actors, but suddenly he was surrounded by like-minded people. “It was two and a half years of experimenting, failing and partying,” he recalls. “It changed things; it was really invaluable to me. It’s not for everyone, but I was there at an age where I was naive enough to appreciate it. I had a lot of fun; I met some brilliant crazy people.” He graduated from LAMDA in 2015, at the age of 21, and between then and his breakout role on “Stranger Things,” he’d been on a rollercoaster ride of hardship: periods when he’d secured promising projects, like a small role as a Winterfell guard in Season 7 of “Game of Thrones,” and periods when he was trying to stretch the paychecks from those projects as far as possible.

Even when he was cast in “Stranger Things” at age 25, his career didn’t immediately take off. Because of the pandemic, nearly three years passed between his audition and the show’s release. “You either work and everything goes really well, or it’s a business, you have no money and you can’t do anything. It’s quite disconcerting to go from one extreme to the other,” he says. “I had no choice. It was the only thing I had a natural aptitude for. It seemed like the only way.” This extended party is certainly the most intense of his career. He’s very grateful for it, and doesn’t want a break. “I know what it’s like to not be busy. And there’s a virtue in both. We’re always romanticizing the antithesis of what we’re experiencing. I think when we’re busy, we want to rest, and when we rest, we become restless.” Although he’s excited about his career, there are less pleasant aspects of being an actor—most notably all the attention you get off screen. Note that the UK is more discreet in its affection than the US, or at least it is less disturbing to be recognised where you come from than in a foreign country.

Being the subject of two films in 2024 means her personal life will inevitably be the subject of content analysis. “It’s about doing my job. Everything else is just distractions and glitter.” She calls her personal life “extraordinarily boring.” She unwinds with mundane household tasks, like doing laundry and cooking, and enjoys exercise and cold-water immersions. “I’m in that very irritating phase where I know a little bit about it, so I tell everyone to do it, which is quite annoying, I guess.” She lists the benefits: the elimination of cortisol, the increase in serotonin. She adds that she usually spends about eight minutes in her tub. She loves gardening, although her yard has been overrun lately. “I have a hoya plant that’s been ravaged by slugs. They’re trying to disturb my peace, but I’ll get the better of it.”

Joseph Quinn, child prodigy. From "Strangers Things" to the sequel to "Gladiator"

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