Have You Seen Blond Nicholas Hoult?

July 3, 2025
6:53 pm

Nicholas Hoult is not blond in Superman. He’s playing Superman’s archnemesis, Lex Luthor, who is bald, canonically, and not blond. Yet all that’s breaking through from the ongoing Superman press tour — full of little sketches and TikTok trends where Hoult pals around with co-stars David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan — is that Hoult, a character actor who has been around forever and starred in four movies last year alone, is now blond. It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no — it’s a bleach job that actually looks good.

Just about every star of some A- or B-list caliber will go platinum — for a role, for the culture, for the thrill of it. This is nothing new. Marilyn Monroe was not a natural blonde, you know? But more recently, male actors have had to adhere to the trend, often going blond in order to play villains or, at least, look somewhat unnerving. Miles Teller went blond (and had to apologize for it). Aaron Taylor-Johnson went blond. Chris Messina, Daniel Craig, Kanye West, and Jonah Hill have all bleached their hair at some point, and most recently a solid percentage of Ryan Gosling’s press tour for Barbie centered on the very blondness of himself and Ken. To be clear, Hoult — like many of his peers — is switching it up for his job: It’s for his role in the forthcoming David Leitch movie How to Rob a Bank, which he described as a “Robin Hood–esque” tale of guys robbing banks for a greater cause. It’s funny to imagine a Robin Hood–esque criminal doling out money to those in need while siphoning some profits away for his purple shampoo.

Hoult’s blond moment is in part a testament to styling. Every outfit he’s worn on the Superman press tour accentuates his stature. Long, flow-y pants and cropped, little shirts play up the retro nature of the new Superman adaptation but also cement Hoult as a kind of timeless star. No one would mistake Hoult for a genuine Golden Age star, but the nostalgic quality of his styling mishmashes decades and personas. At once, he is a cool guy in a leather jacket and a quirked-up dad in a fun sweater.

Jason Bolden, who worked most recently with stars like Michael B. Jordan and Cynthia Erivo, is the man behind a number of these looks, playing up the soft and playful nature of Hoult’s natural affinity for character work. Hoult has leading-man-handsome qualities, but he’s spent most of his career playing weirdos (The Order, Mad Max: Fury Road) and losers (The Menu, Juror #2) or some combination of the two (Superman). His red-carpet looks don’t project nonchalance but non-anxiety. He’s chilling. His co-star Corenswet has more to prove with this press tour; he’s functionally introducing himself as Superman, arguing that he’s a marquee star worthy of all the IP money that’s been funneled into rebooting Superman yet again. (It’s notable, maybe, that former Superman Henry Cavill is also on a little hair adventure to, uh, a lesser degrees of success.) Perhaps what Hoult is exposing is that the only way to navigate your way through the superhero swamp — look hot, and not have the fate of the franchise on your shoulders.

Whatever it is, every picture of Hoult is a thrill unto itself — a testament to strong styling, confidence, and the comfort of having been a celebrity for more than 20 years. Hoult is a mood, a vibe. He looks like the only person out here having a good summer so far. While he debuted his new look on Instagram, Hoult wrote “blonde now” as if to imply the finality of it all. There’s no way this time can last, but we might as well enjoy it until his roots grow out.