The first watch that Nicholas Hoult remembered receiving was from Gabriel Byrne.

He was around 14 and was the lead in Wah-Wah, a film loosely based on Richard E Grant’s life and his fractious relationship with his father. Hoult played Ralph Compton, who experienced his family’s disintegration during the final days of the Swaziland Protectorate.

Grant wore two watches, a Breitling Navitimer on his left hand and a Cartier Tank on his right. The Navitimer—a gift from his late father—tells the correct time, while the Tank is set to Swaziland time, a reminder of the actor-director’s childhood and heritage.

Gabriel Byrne, who played Hoult’s father in the film, followed suit and gifted Hoult a watch when the film wrapped. “I don’t know what type of watch it is,” Hoult says after thinking. He added that it was made from rose-gold (maybe) and comes with a very beautiful bracelet (Hoult was very sure about this particular description. He adds that when Byrne bought the watch in Russia, it was with his then-Russian girlfriend, who told him that the watch didn’t belong to Byrne, but he would find the right person to give it to.

“And my plan is to pass that watch down to a younger actor that I work with at some point,” Hoult says. “Hopefully it will keep on getting passed along from generation to generation. That’s one of the things that I think is beautiful about watches. That they are an investment. Like something that you kinda pass along.”

While the next generation has something to look forward to, we have to cast our eyes back into Hoult’s early days that would tell us about how he came to be. Born in 1989, Hoult drew wide attention as the awkward and unforgettable Marcus in About a Boy. He was 11 when he filmed About a Boy, but it was a performance that signalled a startling range and nuance in someone so young. 

Swinging between mainstream movies and independent films, Hoult is perhaps best known to wider audiences as Beast in the X-Men franchise, as Nux in George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road and Lex Luthor in Superman. Now, Hoult adds another notch to his CV, as Jaeger-LeCoultre’s global ambassador.

Hoult was aware of the brand before he came on board, but he wouldn’t describe himself as a watch fanatic. “I just appreciated them,” he says. The humble timepiece is also, according to Hoult, a mechanical marvel. A piece of equal artistic merit and engineering, the watch is that final touch to an outfit. An accessory that ties everything in. “It’s something that makes me feel special and complete,” Hoult says. “My dad had a couple of nice watches, and I was lucky through work to get to learn about some nice watches and experience wearing them for events and things like that.”

But his partnership with Jaeger-LeCoultre educated Hoult on the brand’s history and watchmaking processes. “That was something that I really appreciated and loved about this experience,”
Hoult adds.

He joked that the Jaeger-LeCoultre model that he feels connected to would be a Duoface. “Because I’m two-faced,” Hoult quips; he had worn a Reverso Tribute Duoface Tourbillon at the Superman premiere in Los Angeles.

But the watch that he wears often—his daily driver—is Reverso Tribute Steel Monoface with a brown leather strap. Hoult praises the beauty of the watch and lets in on a little secret that endears it to him: it has his oldest son’s initials engraved on the back. 

As an actor, Hoult sees the parallels between horology and what he does as an actor. “The timing is important. Particularly when you’re doing comedy or things like that. There is an element of needing to be present, but also being aware of the time surrounding the shoot.”

(Hoult is also refreshingly punctual. In a world where time is relative, where an appointment can stretch or flatten according to the situation, Hoult was raised to respect other people’s time.)

As with every thespian, the development of the role requires ample preparation. Hoult delves into what has been done before to create something new. But there’s only so much he can do.

“I’m always doing my best in the present, in that moment on set,” Hoult says. “But hindsight is 20/20, and you look back on some projects, and you say, oh, you know, if I’d known this, then perhaps I would have [acted] differently.“

But he doesn’t dwell on that. Not that he thinks his performances are always perfect, but Hoult gives himself the grace and acceptance that he did his best at the time. “But that’s something that I love about acting,” Hoult explains, “that I’m always learning and evolving and trying to do something different and get better. There’s always a forward momentum to what I do.

As an actor, one of the perks afforded him is being transported to these different times as authentically as possible. He recounts his time filming Nosferatu, where they got to go on the set in Prague. Hoult gets to be in costume, surrounded by a near-accurate town in Germany situated in the 18th century.

“That’s a really special experience in my profession. Anything that makes it feel more authentic is something you can cling to and trick your brain into believing things are real. You get to experience the world and life on so many different levels, and also understand and learn different parts of history that you maybe hadn’t experienced before.

Lex Luthor is a Jaeger-LeCoultre fan.

Or, at the very least, the Jaeger-LeCoultre watch is something that he would wear. In preparing for his role as Lex Luthor in this year’s Superman, Hoult reasoned that his character wants the best of everything, and given Luthor’s intellect and discernment, he’d appreciate Jaeger-LeCoultre’s artistry and construction. Hoult, who has worked with the brand since 2017, reached out to them about the idea.

“There’s a scene where [my character] is dressed in a dinner jacket, and it’s clear that he’s going to a kind of a gala or an event afterwards. That felt appropriate for [Lex] to wear a Reverso rose gold Duoface piece.

“So, yeah. I choose the watches for [my] characters.” Hoult says.

At the point of the interview, a blond Nicholas Hoult tells us that he feels “pretty fortunate” to be where he is right now. It’s exactly where he wants to be. We play a game of “what-if”; what if he could go back to any moment in his life, where- when would he travel to?

“Probably to an era in my career as a child actor,” Hoult answers. “You know, there are a lot of cautionary tales of child actors not succeeding nor being able to work when they become adults. It was something that made me quite stressed as a child so, if I could go back, I’d want to feel calmer about it.”

But Hoult presents a revision to the “what-if” game. Instead of heading back into the past, Hoult wants to head into the future. Nothing too far-flung. Hoult wants to be present in his children’s lives. “The moments when they graduate, or get married, or all those sorts of things.”

Then, as quickly as he had suggested jumping into the future, he followed up by saying he’d rather wait it out. He is happy to live each day as fully and as lovingly as a parent, and a husband, and as a friend. And while a watch is a valuable thing to pass on to the next generation, you get a sense with Hoult that perhaps it is one’s presence and the time spent that is the most prized commodity of all.