Nicholas Hoult turns fanboy at AsiaPop Comicon

MANILA, Philippines – “I’m Team Mystic,” declared Nicholas Hoult.

No, it wasn’t a shout-out to the shape-shifting character of Mystique, famously portrayed by his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Lawrence. Mystic refers to the team Nicholas has chosen to belong to in the widely-popular augmented reality mobile game Pokemon Go. This, he revealed after The STAR asked him about the mobile game during a presscon at the 2016 AsiaPop Comicon at the SMX Convention Center last Aug. 27.

The British star was one of the celebrity guests for the three-day convention, where Filipino fans got the chance to interact with him in various activities. Other guests of the convention included Games of Thrones’ Joe Dempsie, The Originals’ Claire Holt and Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown.

“I like the color blue,” he said, explaining his choice of team for the game he admitted to being terrible at.

“Team Mystic, level 13, not very good at all. I've kinda fallen off playing with it recently. I found it difficult to find new Pokemons.” When the audience told him there were lots of Pokemons around, the actor jokingly got up and pretended to leave the interview to hunt for new Pokemons.

Well, perhaps Nicholas can catch new Pokemons in the country as he has plans to extend his stay to explore and chill at the beaches. As a first-timer in Manila, the 26-year-old British actor said he is thrilled at what he has discovered so far of the city.

“I did not know what to expect. I did not know how vast Manila was. You realize when you fly in, you get the sense of the city is. I didn’t know how humid it was going to be,” he shared, even joking about the extreme traffic.

Together with Skins co-star Joe, Nicholas visited Luneta Park on his first day in the country.

“Yesterday (Aug. 26), we went to visit the memorial of Rizal. We walked around in the gardens there,” he recalled, adding that he enjoyed riding the kalesa and strolling around Intramuros to see old churches. The actor also went to a couple of bars that night, one of which was Spicy Fingers where Nicholas admitted liking the band that played there at the time. The actor also shared that he bought a No. 3 basketball jersey of a Filipino team.

“I love it here, everyone has been wonderful so far, really friendly, the food’s been great. I love it! It’s a great culture.”

There was one thing though that the actor was relunctant to try out — the balut.

“They say it’s aphrodisiac. I saw pictures of it and it looks a little bit disgusting,” he said. "If I build up the courage, then I will try that."

The actor may be hesitant to try the balut but when it comes to his career, Nicholas can boast that he has taken on a wide range of roles. And because of this variety, Nicholas couldn’t name a specific role as his favorite, saying that he “loves the different films for different reasons.”

Some of these roles include Marcus Brewer in About A Boy, as Tony Stonem in Skins, as titular character in Jack the Giant Slayer, zombie R in Warm Bodies and Silas in Equals.

And as far as his character Beast in the X-Men series is concerned, Nicholas would love to see to himself portray the Dark Beast. Asked if there was another film franchise he’d like to be part of, Nicholas chose Star Wars. The actor also expressed hopes of being cast in a Western type of film since he has never starred in one.

Nicholas will next be seen in the film Sand Castle, where he portrays an American soldier on a mission to help a village at the end of war in Iraq. The actor has also wrapped up filming Rebel in the Rye, where Nicholas plays the reclusive author J.D. Salinger during the author’s early days of trying to establish his career in New York’s literary circle in the 1940s.

And, indeed, the actor aims to take on as many diverse roles as he can.

“I would get bored if I do the same thing and repeat myself. I think anyone who will watch a film I am in and I’m playing the same thing over and over again, they’ll find it boring as well. So as much as you can transform physically and emotionally, that makes a big difference.”

As to how to succeed at taking a new character each time, Nicholas shared that there’s no secret formula, just good-old work ethics.

“There's no set rule that I have developed. Essentially, it’s just a lot of preparation and research and learning as much as you can before turning up on set. And then being adaptable once you get there, depending on how the director wants to work or the other actors around you.”

Preparation is definitely one of the factors that helped Nicholas get into the character of Salinger.

“It’s difficult because there’s no video or audio of him that exists that we could find. So it’s a lot of reading biographies about him, reading his novels,” he shared.

“On the emotional level, I would just sit at home, on a typewriter, writing stories, just trying to understand what that felt like as well,” he added.

The movie not only gave Nicholas a great challenge but also a better understanding of the author’s life.

“He was a very rebellious character. He got kicked out from quite a few schools, his writing was pretty much against the phoniness of the world that he saw around him, and that’s what lit the fire within him, for him to go out and write what he thought was a truthful depiction of the world and the characters that he saw around him.”

Nicholas also shared that if he would be a writer, he’d write an adventure story inspired by Salinger's style of writing.

"I wasn't trying to imitate the style of J.D. Salinger but I was seeing things that he would find interesting to write about. Obviously his stories center a lot on young people."

Nicholas also loves reading, racing motorbikes and hanging out with friends. He also admitted to being a fan of Netflix’s Stranger Things and expressed admiration for Millie Bobby Brown, the actress playing one of the main characters, Eleven.

“She gave such a wonderful performance there and I’m kinda fanboying meeting her, so I’m looking forward to that. I think I’ll be on the line waiting for her autograph as well. She’s fantastic and I love watching that. So that’s one thing I’m geeking over with.”