Taron Egerton
TARON EGERTON is a British actor and singer, known for his roles in the British television series The Smoke, the 2014 action comedy film Kingsman: The Secret Service, and the film Rocketman (2019).
He has also played Edward Brittain in the 2014 drama film Testament of Youth, appeared in the 2015 crime thriller film Legend, starred as Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards in the 2016 biographical film Eddie the Eagle, voiced Johnny in the 2016 animated musical film Sing, and reprised his role in the 2017 Kingsman sequel, The Golden Circle.
He is the recipient of a Golden Globe Award, and has received nominations for a Grammy Award and two British Academy Film Awards.
Egerton was born on November 10, 1989, in Birkenhead, Merseyside, to parents from nearby Liverpool. His grandmother is Welsh. His first name is a variation of ‘taran’, which means ‘thunder’ in the Welsh language.
He spent some of his early childhood on the Wirral Peninsula, and moved with his family to Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, on the Welsh island of Anglesey, where he went to primary school.
Egerton moved to Aberystwyth when he was 12. Fell in love with acting as a teen after performing in his first production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which he played Flute, the cross-dressing Mechanical.
Won the Stephen Sondheim Society ‘Student Performer of the Year’ 2011, when he was 21 years-old.
He considers himself to be Welsh “through and through”, and is conversant in the Welsh language. Having grown up in Welsh-speaking areas, Anglesey and Ceredigion, Egerton acquired a good knowledge of conversational Welsh and demonstrated this in a ‘Welsh-off’ with fellow actor Luke Evans on the Jonathan Ross show. His Twitter bio states simply and proudly: ‘Actor from Aberystwyth, Wales’.
He attended Ysgol Penglais School and Aberystwyth Arts Centre before moving on to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where he graduated with a BA (Hons) Acting in 2012.
Egerton made his acting debut in 2011 with a small role in two episodes of the ITV series Lewis as Liam Jay. Later, he was added to the main cast of the Sky1 series The Smoke.
Egerton played Gary ‘Eggsy’ Unwin, the young protégé of Harry Hart (Colin Firth), in Matthew Vaughn’s film Kingsman: The Secret Service and its sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle. The first movie’s success launched Egerton into fame and resulted in him signing a three-movie contract with 20th Century Fox.
Speaking about the difficulty of his physical transformation for Kingsman: The Secret Service, Egerton said: “The expectations for this film were so high. But if you are playing someone who has to save the world, you do have to have a bit of muscle tone, don’t you? Dropping the fat, putting on muscle … all of that is really hard if you haven’t done it before.
“Ultimately it’s very rewarding. But you do put yourself though a lot of pain to get yourself into that kind of shape. Watching my body transform was not something I ever imagined I could do – to completely change. Locked in a vault somewhere are some before and after photos.”
Writing for TheWrap, James Rocchi deemed Egerton “a naturally charismatic presence with smarts behind his smile” as espionage recruit ‘Eggsy’ Unwin in Kingsman.
He co-starred in Testament of Youth, based on the life of Vera Brittain, and appeared in the two-part episode ‘The Ramblin’ Boy’ in the seventh series of Lewis as Liam Jay.
He was named one of GQ’s 50 best-dressed British men in 2015 and 2016.
At the 69th British Academy Film Awards in 2016, Egerton received a nomination for the BAFTA Rising Star Award.
In 2018, Egerton was picked to play Elton John in the 2019 musical biopic Rocketman, a role which earned him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and a Grammy Award nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media for his work on the film’s soundtrack. He learned to play the piano for the part and sang live in each take during filming.
Egerton voiced Moomintroll in the animated series Moominvalley and Rian in the fantasy series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. He reprised the role of Johnny in Sing 2, which released December 22, 2021.
Follow-up roles include entrepreneur Henk Rogers in the biographical film Tetris and American drug dealer James ‘Jimmy’ Keene in the limited series In with the Devil, an adaptation of Keene’s novel of the same name.
Egerton was also lined up to star in a West End production of the play Cock by Mike Bartlett and a film adaptation of the novel The Stars at Noon by Denis Johnson as well as reprise the role of Eggsy for a third Kingsman film.
Egerton describes himself as having come from a working-class background. Having lost a grandmother to motor neurone disease, he is an ambassador for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
(sources include IMDb and Wikipedia)
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