Lead roles with an Oscar winner, pep talks from Tom Hardy… If you judge an actor by the company he keeps, then get ready to rave over Taron Egerton

FIT!’ ‘Fiiiiiiiit!’ ‘Oh my god, he issooo fit!’ A pause. ‘Who is he?’ Not that we objectify in the ASOS office, but if you’ve seen the trailer for Kingsman: The Secret Service, you’ll understand our reaction.

‘He’ is Taron Egerton, 25-year-old star of Matthew ‘Kick-Ass/X-Men’ Vaughn’s new spy movie, co-starring Oscar-winning Colin Firth. The film involved months of stunt training and got Taron a sandwich made by a supermodel [Vaughn is married to Claudia Schiffer].

If comic-book adaptation Kingsman didn’t pluck him from obscurity [he had been on Sky 1’s The Smoke and mum faveInspector Lewis], it did kick-start his career. His next movie is Legend with Tom Hardy, while last month saw the release of London Film Festival smash,Testament Of Youth.

continue reading

Taron Egerton stands a lean, muscular five foot eight inches tall and he has the type of cheeky grin that will let him get away with murder. At the age of just twenty-four, since coming out of RADA, Egerton has two television series under his belt and three big-budget films The Rise of the Krays, Testament of Youth (which saw him nominated for Best Newcomer at the BFI London Film Festival Awards) and Kingsman: The Secret Service, an upcoming British action film adapted from Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar’s comic book The Secret Service, which sees Taron co-lead with the nation’s most-loved actor, quintessential English gentleman, Colin Firth.

Meeting Taron is a pleasant reversal of expectations. Not that I thought he was going to mirror the east London juvenile delinquent he’s playing in Kingsman: The Secret Service IRL, but you know, it’s always hard to pre-empt the situation. “Brooke meet Taron,” his publicists voice rang through the room. I had just stuffed my mouth with half a tube of Smarties, so it wasn’t the way I envisioned myself meeting a guy who’s sure to be listed in GQ’s hot one hundred in a matter of months, but we continue all the same.

continue reading