Outfitting a supervillain can be tricky business. Apple, for instance, allegedly has a policy that prevents onscreen bad guys from using their devices. But the historic Swiss watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre saw no issue with providing their global ambassador Nicholas Hoult with a stellar timepiece for his role as Superman heavy Lex Luthor. When I asked Hoult recently to name his favorite look ever with a JLC on his wrist, that’s what came to mind first: the Reverso Duoface he sported with a tuxedo “on his way to interrogate and torture Superman, but he had a gala to attend before that.”
Hoult was chatting with me over Zoom from the set of a new Jaeger-LeCoultre commercial. His shock of bleach blond hair was cheekily paired with a vintage T-shirt from Madonna’s Blond Ambition Tour. The central idea of the campaign is turning points—a cute nod to the Reverso’s signature flipping dial, but also something the 35-year-old actor is all too familiar with.
From his start as a child actor on movies like Hugh Grant’s About a Boy to his teen heartthrob days on Skins to major roles in hits like The Favourite, The Menu, Nosferatu, and next year’s heist blockbuster How to Rob a Bank, Hoult’s career has been as longer and windier than that of some actors twice his age. “It’s a long road,” he tells me of his working life. “I remember Colin Firth telling me when we did A Single Man, ‘Enjoy the highs. There will be lows. So enjoy the highs.’”
Here, Hoult goes deep on his favorite watches, sheds light on the upcoming Superman sequel, and explains how a Pittsburgh Pirates game became “one of the scariest experiences” of his life.
Courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre
GQ: Tell me about the watch you’re wearing today.
Nichous Hoult: This is the Reverso Tribute Steel Monoface. This is, as people say, my daily driver. I love this watch because it’s understated, it’s classy, it’s elegant. This one is personal to me because it’s got my eldest son’s initials engraved on the back. So this is a watch that I plan to pass down to him when he’s older.
When did you first get into collecting?
I’ve always viewed watches as something that becomes a family heirloom, something to pass down through generations. So that’s something exciting for me now that I’m a father myself. Now I’m like, “Any watch that I collect or love and appreciate, that’s something that I can then give to my sons.”
The first time I was given a watch was when I was 14 and I was shooting a movie called Wah-Wah. It was about Richard Grant’s life, and Gabriel Byrne played my father in that and he gave me a watch at the end of the shooting. So that watch is something I still have. It’s engraved on the back with the date of the movie and Wah-Wah, and I said to him that I will hand that down to a younger actor that I work with one day. Hopefully, that’ll be something that travels through generations of actors. That’s what I like to imagine.
Do you have a favorite look that you’ve done on the red carpet or in your day-to-day life with a watch that’s special to you?
There’s a moment in the Superman movie where [Hoult’s character] Lex Luthor is wearing a dinner jacket. He was on his way to interrogate and torture Superman, but he had a gala to attend before that, so he was wearing his dinner suit, and we had a Reverso Duoface in rose gold with a black leather strap for that scene. That felt very in sync with Lex and what he was wearing and how astute he is in terms of what he would appreciate and his wealth—it felt very right for that moment in the film for him to be wearing that.
