"I don't want to look back at my career and see a string of incredibly commercial projects that don't have much heart. I'm looking for things that have soul."
Taron David Egerton (born 10 November 1989 in Birkenhead, England) is a Welsh actor.
He's known primarily for his role as Gary "Eggsy" Unwin in Kingsman: The Secret Service, a live action adaptation of the Mark Millar comic series it shares a name with. He reprised the role in Kingsman: The Golden Circle in 2017.
He's since starred as a love interest in Legend, as the title role in Robin Hood and as Elton John in Rocketman.
Despite the increasing clamour of fans and press, Egerton has kept a strikingly muted presence outside his acting work, by mainstream Hollywood standards.
He's extremely popular in East Asia, especially South Korea. South Koreans have bestowed the Fan Nickname "Kim Taron" upon him; "Kim" being the most common surname in SK, indicating the citizens see him as an honorary Korean. Sometimes written as a fake Romanization of a Korean name, i.e. "Kim Tae Ron."
Selected filmography:
- Lewis (2013) as Liam Jay
- The Smoke (2014) as Dennis "Asbo" Severs
- Testament of Youth (2014) as Edward Brittain
- Kingsman (2015 — present) as Gary "Eggsy" Unwin:
- Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
- Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)
- Kingsman 3 (TBD)
- Legend (2015) as Edward "Mad Teddy" Smith
- Eddie the Eagle (2016) as Michael "Eddie the Eagle" Edwards
- Sing (2016) as Johnny (voice)
- Sing 2 (2021)
- Billionaire Boys Club (2018) as Dean Karny
- Robin Hood (2018) as Robin Hood
- Watership Down (2018) as El-Ahrairah (voice)
- Rocketman (2019) as Elton John
- Moominvalley (2019) as Moomintroll (voice)
- The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (2019) as Rian (voice)
- The Sandman (2020) as John Constantine
- Blackbird (2022) as James "Jimmy" Keene
- Tetris (2023) as Henk Rogers
He provides examples of:
- Author Appeal: He's expressed a desire to defy Typecasting, but has said that he's drawn to character roles as opposed to the typical generic one-dimensional eye candy archetype. Indeed, his roles tend to be wildly different from each other and heavy on characterisation, but what most of them have in common is that they are usually heroic, from a working-class background, or Working-Class Heroes.
- Awesome, Dear Boy: The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is reportedly the first and sole project he's ever signed on to without having taken so much as a singular look at the script.
- Brutal Honesty: A trademark of his, as a public figure. He's a very Nice Guy with a pronounced sense of humour, but is also known for being extremely candid in interviews (and in general). According to Egerton himself; as a student, he once bluntly told his teacher in school that some notes he'd been passing around with a girl he had a crush on were "none of your business."note
- But Not Too Foreign: He has yet to play a Welshman onscreen. He's normally cast as a more "accessible" kind of British, i.e. English. That said, he makes no secret of the fact that he's Welsh.
- The Cast Show Off: He's an excellent singer, having been part of his training in drama school. This lends itself to musical roles like in Sing and Rocketman, though even non-musical roles like Rian in Dark Crystal call for him to sing sometimes as well.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: He sings the Cover Version of the track "Rocketman," which you can guess is the theme tune of a movie called....
- Enforced Method Acting: Rather common in his projects, particularly ones in which he works with Matthew Vaughn. For example, he was truly submerged in both underwater scenes of Kingsman: The Secret Service and Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
- Fake American: Does a convincing portrayal of Henk Rogers in the Tetris movie.
- Funny Foreigner: For the first few years of his career as a movie star, interviewers would try to get him to say the name of a town he went to school in
note for laughs. He later said he's sick of it. This has since stopped. - Historical Beauty Upgrade: Has pretty much become a speciality of his, being cast in quite a handful of Period Piece Based on a True Story/Very Loosely Based on a True Story roles, in all of which this is in effect. For instance, compare the real Dean Karny◊ to Egerton's◊. Billionaire Boys Club may have performed the worst of his films, commercially and critically, but the fact that he lent his traditionally handsome looks to Karny has given the character a cult following of Smitten Teenage Girls.
- Important Haircut: He actually messed up his hairline to play Elton for Rocketman and shortly shaved all of his hair off in an effort to repair it to some extent. But he'd also been going through a break-up at the time, and stated in an interview he was also very much trying to "shave that girl out of [his] hair." (His status as a single dude lasted a mere four months, incidentally, before he got back together with his girlfriend.)
- Lantern Jaw of Justice: It's one of his most defining physical characteristics, with publications and fellow celebrities alike commenting on how remarkably square and sharp his jawline is from day one. Take this quote by no less than Jamie Foxx, with whom Egerton starred in Robin Hood (2018):Foxx: He looks so great as Robin Hood, that fucking jawline. Good-looking motherfucker.
- Nice Guy: An extraordinarily nice and extraordinarily humble young man, by many accounts.
- Production Posse: With directors Matthew Vaughn and Dexter Fletcher.
- Promoted Fanboy: He went from singing Elton John, to saving Elton John, to finally being Elton John - the first of which, according to Elton himself, was what got him the job on Rocketman.
- Real-Person Fic: Per an early-2019 interview for British GQ, he has actually seen some of the abundant RPF featuring him (or, well, a version of him constructed by said fans). Understandably, he doesn't like it. His phrases of choice in referring to this type of fanfiction: "some weird shit"; "so full-on and weird."
- Reclusive Artist: Somewhat. He's more active on social media as of late, but still fits the trope by mainstream Hollywood standards. Also prone to posting nothing at all over a period of time, then sometimes suddenly posting many things at once... then disappearing again.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Was in British GQ's "best-dressed men" list for two years in a row. It helps that Giorgio and Roberta Armani themselves approve of him, with the media christening him a muse of the Armani fashion house from 2018 onward.
- Spell My Name With An S: His name was intended to be Taran, the Welsh word for thunder. His mother, not a native of Wales, misspelled it on his birth certificate, hence "Taron."
- Star-Making Role: His first-ever studio film (in order of shooting, not release), Kingsman: The Secret Service, was also this.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: He's been shirtless in a lot of his films, often for Fanservice reasons but not always. (In Eddie The Eagle, his shirtlessness is used to highlight how physically unfit Eddie supposedly is.)
- What Could Have Been:
- He was in the running to portray young Han Solo in Solo, but was passed over because he's already the lead in multiple upcoming franchise pictures and the Star Wars producers felt that he wouldn't be able to give the role the time and focus they wanted.
- He was approached for the role of Scott Summers in X-Men: Apocalypse, but turned down the offer to star in Eddie the Eagle, despite being a fan of the X-Men franchise.
