Nicholas Galitzine Does It All (2024)

While some stars may get a massage or disconnect from every device when they have downtime, Nicholas Galitzine has another idea of how to unwind: wood carving. The 29-year-old British actor shows me the slightly uneven spoon he made; while it’s not perfect, it won’t give anyone splinters, and it could toss a complicated salad with ease. “This is one of my more rudimentary ones,” he says with a princely smile (he’s now played some kind of royalty three times and has another regal role on the horizon. Galitzine was just cast as Prince Adam, a.k.a. He-Man, in Amazon MGM’s Masters of the Universe). “My inherent ADHD forces me into different directions, and it makes it really exciting to discover these different parts of myself. I didn’t feel like I was creative for a lot of my life, so I feel like this constant realization now is thrilling.”

Galitzine, who’s fresh off the premiere of The Idea of You at South by Southwest when we speak, is determined to be regarded as a multihyphenate. While he’s an actor, yes, he’s also a singer when his fingers ache for the guitar. He released a song titled “Comfort” in 2022, and sometimes posts covers to TikTok. Galitzine is also a Fendi ambassador, occasionally writes scripts in his free time, and has plans to produce and direct one day. “Since I was a kid, I never wanted to be one thing—it felt suffocating and paralyzing,” he says. “It’s funny that I ended up becoming an actor, because, by nature, I get to play so many different fun characters. I love being able to learn and add strings to my bow. I only feel creatively nourished when I feel the many facets of myself are being utilized.”

As a young man growing up in Hammersmith, in West London, Galitzine only ever dreamed of this life. His parents had no connection to the industry, and he grew up playing rugby. After high school, his friends talked him into auditioning for an adaptation of Spring Awakening in Edinburgh. He got the part, fell in love with the dramatic arts, and decided to devote himself to acting.

His career took off with two wistfully romantic comedies: the YA military romance Purple Hearts, and Red, White & Royal Blue, the film, which just announced a sequel with Galitzine returning, based on Casey McQuiston’s hit novel of the same name, in which he played Prince Henry, the gay royal who falls for the First Son of the United States. When we talk, he’s brimming with ambition, his skin glowing in the California light. He has a lot to smile about, with two anticipated projects coming out just a month apart.

In Starz’s Mary & George, Galitzine stars opposite Julianne Moore’s Mary Villiers, the Countess of Buckingham, as her son George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. Based upon The King’s Assassin by Benjamin Woolley, the limited series follows both Mary and George as they spar with various nobles for the affection of King James I of England, using seduction as the weapon. “I love the intimacy work we did, because I think it shows what a dominant force and how Machiavellian [George] was,” Galitzine says. “I just loved the fact that here’s this man whose sexual fluidity served him in the best possible way, because whoever was a target for him was achievable, which is fun to play.”

In Amazon’s The Idea of You, he plays Hayes Campbell, a 24-year-old boy band heartthrob who falls in love with Anne Hathaway’s Solène Marchand, a 40-year-old art gallery owner, after they meet at a music festival. It’s a commentary on a Hollywood double standard: Older men date younger women without so much as a squeak from the peanut gallery, whereas the reverse can bring a torrent of sexist criticism. “Being a part of something that has resonance speaks to my goals within this industry,” Galitzine says. “The message is carried out with a lot of finesse. A lot of people will watch this movie, and it will feel very important to them.”

While his work spans historic and modern eras, perhaps the uniting factor of his projects is the A-list stars he gets to work with. In addition to Moore and Hathaway, he’s shared the screen with Uma Thurman in Red, White & Royal Blue. “I got sent a tweet one day that I am collecting award-winning actors like Infinity Stones. I’ve got a few of them. I need to collect a few more before I have the complete gamut,” he jokes, mentioning Viola Davis, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, and Emily Blunt. “Listen, if Annie’s down for it, if they want to do a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, I’ll be someone. I’ll be the assistant who runs and gets coffee for everyone.”

That’s the kind of can-do attitude that has propelled him to where he is today. He’s open to tackling just about any project, whether it be directing, music-making, or creating kitchen tools out of a block of wood. “In my early twenties, I adopted this approach of putting one foot in front of the other, and not looking at the mountain to climb,” he says. “It’s kind of amazing where that’s taken me.”

Hair by Anton Alexander for Kérastase; makeup by Grace Ahn at Day One; manicure by Merrick Fisher and Naoko Saita at Opus Beauty; produced by Production Partners; photographed on location at The Hollywood Roosevelt.

A version of this article appears in the June/July 2024 issue of ELLE.

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