Anthony Boyle is not yet 30 years old, but already, the rising Irish star has made a habit of shining in highly pedigreed projects. He broke out on stage in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, his venomous turn as Scorpius Malfoy earning him an Olivier Award win and a Tony nomination. He went straight from that extended theater run, which lasted three years between London and New York, to a key supporting turn in The Plot Against America opposite Winona Ryder and Zoe Kazan, nearly running away with the whole WWII-set HBO limited series as a fiery Jewish soldier.
Then came 2024. Luck—or, perhaps more accurately, the team at Apple TV+—appears to be on Boyle’s side, as he’s essentially owned the year in prestige television so far. In Masters of the Air, Boyle was again surrounded by bigger names like Oscar nominees Austin Butler and Barry Keoghan, not to mention the all-star producers lineup topped by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. But in this 1940s-set follow-up to The Pacific and Band of Brothers, Boyle emerges as the wounded heart. His Harry Crosby, lieutenant of the Air Force’s Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber unit, grapples with the moral complexities of Masters as he narrates it from beginning to end.
That show concluded last week. Only a few days later came the premiere of the historical thriller Manhunt—also on the streamer, also starring Boyle. Here he portrays President Lincoln’s killer, John Wilkes Booth. (Between that info and the pilot, you can probably guess the show’s plot.) It’s the kind of showcase part for which Boyle feels overdue, though he’s only just at the beginning of his career. He sinks his teeth into the villainous role with severe, sneering aplomb, while also mining some vulnerability beneath Booth’s monstrous surface. It’s a tour-de-force—as Boyle describes it on this week’s Little Gold Men (listen below), one that reflects his willingness to take big risks.
Vanity Fair: How do you square these two shows in your head? Did you film them back to back?
Anthony Boyle: Yeah, we shot Masters of the Air [at] the height of the pandemic, when COVID was rife, in England. Then I wrapped, and the job I was doing after was Booth. He felt like just the polar opposite of Harry Crosby. Crosby felt motivated by love and he’s kind of nervous; Booth was just an asshole, motivated by hate and racism, all this bile. It was two or three months after, just enough time for me to squeeze out a passable mustache. [Laughs]
Thank you for answering my question as to whether it was real!
Yeah, it was. Well, for some of the scenes it was real, because we shot out of order. So I’d say 70% of it is Boyle’s mustache, and 30% is Booth’s.
What kind of experience do you have with mustache growth? Did you know the care requirements?
I didn’t know I could grow one! I’m always doing things where I’m clean-shaven, so it was a kind of a race against the clock. But I’d say after about the month and a half mark, I was quite confident that I was going to get that full handlebar YMCA situation.
You have this quote in the Masters of the Air finale that I thought fed quite nicely into Manhunt. It’s Nietzsche: “Whoever fights monsters should take care not to become a monster himself.” Of course, you are then kind of playing a monster in Manhunt. I’m curious how you found that shift from hero to villain.
I’m glad you picked up that quote, man. I pulled that quote—I was reading it and I sent it to John Orloff, the writer, and he stuck it in, which I was very, very happy about. It really sums up Crosby’s emotional landscape to that point. Crosby’s responsible for the death of hundreds, thousands of people. But the way we’ve scored it off is like, it’s for the greater good—whereas Booth killed one person. Booth thinks he’s a hero and he’s a villain. Crosby is wrestling with his morality, and for that moment, thinks he may be a villain, but he is a hero. I find the quote interesting because it exists in a gray area. He is killing people. He will be responsible for the death of women and children, but it’s for the greater good. I can understand why men of that era didn’t speak about their war experiences. I feel like a lot of them, there’s two categories. They either left and never spoke about it again, or they left and they speak about it constantly.
On Masters of the Air, how did you find getting your bearings over such an extensive shoot? Did you notice differences in process and things like that between you and your cast mates?