1. Josh O'Connor had his breakthrough playing the lead role of a closeted sheep farmer in Francis Lee's romantic drama God's Own Country, for which he won a BIFA Award.
31 Facts About Josh O'Connor
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In 2021, O'Connor won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his role as Charles, Prince of Wales, in the Netflix drama series The Crown.
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Josh O'Connor has since starred in the period drama Emma, the comedy-drama La chimera and the romantic sports film Challengers.
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Josh O'Connor was born to John, a teacher, and Emily, a midwife.
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Josh O'Connor grew up in Newbury until he was five, when his family moved to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire where he was brought up.
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Josh O'Connor is the middle son in a family of three boys.
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Josh O'Connor's grandfather was sculptor John Bunting, his grandmother is a ceramicist, and his maternal aunt is British writer and commentator Madeleine Bunting.
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Josh O'Connor's ancestry is Irish, English, Scottish and, through his matrilineal great-grandmother, Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewish.
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Josh O'Connor wanted to be a professional artist when he was younger, but he did not think he was good enough, so he switched to rugby and then discovered acting.
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Josh O'Connor went to a private co-ed school, St Edward's School, Cheltenham, during the week and spent a lot of time on weekends at the Axiom, a local arts centre.
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Josh O'Connor grew up in a Labour-supporting household, but he traces his political awakening to the arts centre's closure when he was eleven, feeling the deep sense of loss in the community.
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Josh O'Connor is proud to have grown up outside London, in a town with a strong tradition of regional theatre.
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Josh O'Connor has cited his school's drama programme as having helped him live with his dyslexia for many years, especially when preparing for his GCSEs.
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Josh O'Connor then trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, from which he graduated in 2011, and then moved to London.
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In 2012, Josh O'Connor first appeared on television as Charlie Stephenson in Lewis and on film as a zombie in The Eschatrilogy: Book of the Dead.
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Josh O'Connor played Rich in the biographical drama film The Program about the cyclist Lance Armstrong, directed by Stephen Frears.
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Josh O'Connor played in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday as Rowland Lacy and Tom Morton-Smith's Oppenheimer as Luis Alvarez at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
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In 2018, Josh O'Connor starred as Peter in the segment The Colour of His Hair in Boys on film 18: Heroes, and starred alongside Laia Costa in Harry Wootliff's directorial debut Only You, which premiered in competition at the London Film Festival.
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Josh O'Connor starred as Jamie in Hope Gap, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, earning the Best Actor award at the Barcelona-Sant Jordi International Film Festival.
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Josh O'Connor revealed that the role did not initially interest him and that he had to be persuaded to audition.
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Josh O'Connor reprised the role for Season 4 of The Crown, and admitted that his character is "horrible" in that season.
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Josh O'Connor played Mr Elton in the period comedy-drama film Emma based on Jane Austen's 1815 novel of the same name.
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Josh O'Connor played Paul Sheringham in Mothering Sunday, which explores class divides and postwar survivor's guilt in 1924, starring alongside Olivia Colman and Colin Firth.
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Josh O'Connor was seen in the drama film Lee, starring Kate Winslet, which is set during World War II and directed by Ellen Kuras.
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Josh O'Connor starred opposite Zendaya in Challengers, directed by Luca Guadagnino.
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In 2024, it was announced that Josh O'Connor had joined the cast of Wake Up Dead Man, the third instalment of the Knives Out trilogy directed by Rian Johnson.
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Francis Lee, director of God's Own Country, has described Josh O'Connor as "one of those rare actors that is a real shape-shifter".
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Josh O'Connor experimented with method acting for his role in God's Own Country.
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Josh O'Connor created the Waterlogged initiative to raise funds for Mind, a mental health charity working across England and Wales.
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Josh O'Connor lived in a Victorian house in Shoreditch and briefly relocated to New York for "a spell" with his former partner before moving back to Gloucestershire in 2023, where he bought a house in Woodchester, a village outside Stroud.
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Josh O'Connor is a supporter of the Labour Party, campaigned for Jeremy Corbyn in the 2019 general election, and has described himself as a "liberal left-winger".