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Total Film
catches up with Jack O’Connell in February, he’s on an uncharacteristically chilled break. ‘I’m just in Italy, in the mountains,’ he explains.
‘Just frolicking around in the snow.’ Not exactly what you expect if you’re familiar with his on-screen work, which frequently has a ferocious edge.
After doing classic Brit TV staples (The Bill, Holby City), O’Connell showed early promise in the likes of This Is England and Eden Lake. Born in Derbyshire in 1990 to an Irish father and English mother, O’Connell almost pursued a career in football before he found drama, his working-class roots making him something of a rarity in the British acting scene. His big break came with Skins, E4’s talent hotbed that had already launched the careers of Dev Patel, Daniel Kaluuya and Nicholas Hoult when he joined Season 3 as bad boy James Cook.