When the road to success is littered with losers and even your closest colleagues are desperate for you to fail, what would you do to make it to the top?
Those of us of a certain age would probably best remember Nicholas Hoult as either Marcus from About A Boy or Tony from the first generation of Skins. More recently, the English actor has appeared in the X-Men Franchise as a young Hank McCoy and as Nux in Mad Max: Fury Road. Now he can add a super disturbing role in Owen Harris‘ new dark music industry satire, Kill Your Friends.
In the film, which is an adaptation of John Niven‘s novel of the same name, Hoult plays the twisted lead role of Steven Stelfox: a twenty-seven-year-old A&R guy on the incessant (and for those around him: dangerous) hunt for the next big hit. Riding the wave of Britpop domination in the late-90s, Stelfox is a a man “created by an industry that demands success at any price”. He starts to snap as the landscape of the music industry begins to change and the mega hits start to dry up. Doing whatever he can to wring the next success out of musicians and money out of the fickle public, Stelfox “takes the concept of ‘killer tunes’ to a murderous new level in a desperate attempt to salvage his career.”
With James Corden, Rosanna Arquette, and Craig Roberts all co-staring, “Kill Your Friends is a dark, satirical and hysterically funny evisceration of the Nineties music business. A time and place populated by frauds, charlatans and bluffers; where ambition is a higher currency than talent, and where it seems anything can be achieved – as long as you want it badly enough.”
You can watch the trailer for the movie below. It’s set to premier at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, with a general release to follow shortly after.