It's only April but already, Kingsley Ben-Adir has had quite a year.
Fresh off the hype he started to build in 2019 and 2020 thanks to a stint in Peaky Blinders, starring opposite Zoë Kravitz in High Fidelity and portraying non other than Barack Obama in The Comey Rule, the London-born actor has won plaudits for his depiction of civil rights icon Malcolm X in Regina King's directorial debut One Night In Miami...
To top it all off, in March Ben-Adir was confirmed as one of the five nominees - alongside Bukky Bakray (Rocks), Conrad Khan (County Lines), Morfydd Clark (Saint Maud) and Sopé Dìrísù (His House) - for the 2021 EE BAFTA Rising Star Award.
The award, which is voted for by the public and has previously been won by Daniel Kaluuya, John Boyega, Leititia Wright, Will Poulter and Tom Hardy, will be announced at the ceremony on Sunday, April 11.
Fresh off the heels of the nomination announcement, Ben-Adir joined ELLE UK at London's Savoy hotel for a game of 'Knowing Me, Knowing You' about his One Night In Miami... and High Fidelity co-stars.
During the game, we learned quite a few things - not only about his castmates - but about the actor himself, too.
In honour of High Fidelity - which was cancelled by Hulu last year - the actor spoke about his 'top five' TV shows of all time which include The Sopranos, The Wire, Succession, Breaking Bad and Peaky Blinders. While he admitted that yes, he does star in the latter show's fifth season, he loves the series for Cillian Murphy, Helen McCrory and Paul Anderson's performances.
The Sopranos, meanwhile, is a show over which he bonded with Kravitz. The BAFTA nominee revealed that the pair would often join fellow castmate David H Holmes to watch the series in between filming High Fidelity.
'She has such a deep curiosity about acting, craft, and process,' Ben-Adir said of Kravitz. 'And I think that was the thing that we really connected on.'
Ben-Adir has similar admiration for King, the woman behind the lens of One Night In Miami... - a reimagining of the meeting held by Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown.
'She's [King] a really special person to work with,' Ben-Adir told us. 'I guess, because she has such a deep understanding of acting and she knew how to give us space. And she knew exactly when to come in and give us a nudge in one direction or the other.'
While Ben-Adir is now a seasoned professional at playing well-known historical figures, thanks to his cameo as Obama in The Comey Rule (which he admitted is the most nervous he's ever been) he's evidently less at ease with being portrayed himself - something which happened recently on Saturday Night Live.
In February, British actor Regé-Jean Page hosted the comedy sketch show and along with scenes paying homage to his Bridgerton character the Duke of Hastings, also impersonated Ben-Adir in a sketch (which has already been viewed one million times) about the success of British actors playing American parts.
'A couple of people sent me that video. Good times. My thoughts on it were like, "This is really weird." It's kind of funny,' he laughed.
Before finding fame, Ben-Adir attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama along with Michaela Coel, Paapa Essiedu and Lily James. He still keeps in touch with Essiedu and remembers reading an earl script of Chewing Gum for Coel, which ended up winning her a BAFTA in 2016.
A few days after leaving drama school, he landed the part of 'soldier one' on Brad Pitt's 2013 blockbuster World War Z, which ended up getting cut as he arrived on set. However, just as he was about to leave he got given a few lines at the very end.
How far he's come.
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