âI havenât seen this one specifically,â Leo Woodall says as a sheepish smile â the one that has made a fair number of hearts flutter since Netflix dropped its adaptation of the angsty romantic drama âOne Day,â in which he stars â stretches across his face.
Woodall is well aware there is a trove of TikTok videos that document viewersâ intensely emotional response to the series, which chronicles the 20-year torturous slow burn of unlikely friends Dex (Woodall) and Emma (Ambika Mod). His friends have passed some on, he says. But after pleasantries are exchanged at the start of this video call on a mid-May morning â with Woodall beaming in from London â I share my screen to guide him through a TikTok sampler of heartache that has been recorded.
He lets out an enthusiastic chuckle as he braces for impact.
Thereâs a young woman, draped in a green blanket, in various states of complete anguish. Another video is a close-up shot of a young woman wiping tears from her face while watching an early interaction between Dex and Emma with the caption: âMe 2 days later still crying watching edits.â The final video features a viewer who has just completed the series, camera turned to her face as she lies in utter despair against a pillow. One by one, Woodall lets out a guilty whimper or âOh, noooo!â as he screens them.
âWe could watch these all day,â Woodall says as the brief presentation nears its end.
âI was just very intrigued and anxious to know what people thought and how they were responding to it,â Leo Woodall says of the launch of his âOne Day.â He neednât have worried.
(Jennifer McCord / For The Times)
âIn the beginning, when the show came out, I was trying to keep up with some of the reactions to it,â he adds. âI was just very intrigued and anxious to know what people thought and how they were responding to it â if they responded to it at all. But thereâs something cathartic and therapeutic about it. Everyone needs a good cry. We spend a lot of our time watching things, and you donât always have a real, emotional reaction. And I think the show really succeeded in lancing its way into peopleâs hearts.â
Itâs also helped the actorâs rising profile, taking him from a virtual unknown to an international heartthrob. After a key supporting turn in the sophomore season of HBOâs âThe White Lotus,â playing the alleged ânephewâ of a gay man trying to scam Jennifer Coolidgeâs wealthy character, the 27-year-old actor sent the internet into emotional freefall in February with the launch of the adaptation of David Nichollsâ bestselling novel. In the melancholic, angst-ridden friends-to-lovers tale â previously adapted for the big screen in 2011 with Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess â Woodallâs Dexter is privileged and charismatic but emotionally tortured as the series chronicles his evolving friendship with his witty and stubborn BFF across two decades on the same day.
âThereâs definitely a kind of projection that people put on you,â he says. âI myself have done it with actors that Iâve watched. Itâs just a natural thing that you do. Being on the other end of it was kind of a strange feeling. You just canât take it too seriously. You have to find it funny and just get on with your life a little bit. Giving it too much attention is not something I would want to do. Itâs just a funny part of life now.â
Not that Woodall has had much time to make sense of the attention. Soon after âOne Dayâ premiered, he took a breather from Instagram: âMy followers were going up and up, and I was like, âOh, cool.â But then I was like, Iâm going to put my phone away.â He also began production in Budapest, Hungary, on the Nazi drama âNuremberg,â a film whose cast includes Russell Crowe, Michael Shannon and Rami Malek. With that now wrapped, heâs begun work on the fourth installment of âBridget Jonesâs Diaryâ opposite RenĂ©e Zellweger.
Next up for Leo Woodall? Appearing in the upcoming âBridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.â
(Jennifer McCord / For The Times)
Although Woodall comes from a family of actors â his parents met at drama school and he is a descendant of silent film star Maxine Elliott â he hadnât always dreamed of pursuing life as a performer. He thought maybe something sporty was in his cards. Then he discovered âPeaky Blindersâ and âSkins,â and the curiosity kicked in.
âI just remember I was in a gap year, working in a bar, not doing anything of great worth for my future, and I guess I started just kind of thinking about it,â he says. âIt was a few things: It was âPeaky Blinders,â also âSkins.â I watched the two seasons that Jack OâConnell was in. I remember seeing his character and being like, âWhoa, thatâs fun. Whatever heâs doing, thatâs cool.â I started looking into how he got to where he was and his road to playing that character. And yeah, watching âPeaky Blindersâ and just felt like doing a Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) impression in the mirror. [Laughs] I had the hat, and I was like, âScrew it, no one is looking. Iâll just do it.â Itâs so embarrassing. I would start improvising in the world of âPeaky Blinders.ââ
He graduated in 2019 from Arts Educational School, where he studied acting, before landing minor roles in such TV shows as âVampire Academyâ and âCitadel.â He was filming âThe White Lotusâ when he watched the film version of âOne Dayâ as prep work for his audition: âI didnât know how it was gonna end,â he says. âAnd I remember I was in my kitchen cooking something, and I turned my eyes away for a second and I look back and Emma had been hit. And I was like, âWhat the fâ? How could you do us like that?!ââ
It added to his intrigue of, as he describes it, âa love story that wasnât really just a romantic story. Itâs about these two people who grow up together, and also apart. Itâs about their friendship more than it is about, âAre they gonna get together?â I know that is a huge part of it, but you do just see a real friendship.â Then thereâs the complexity of Dexâs journey.
âHeâs unbelievably fragile and vulnerable,â he says. âI think thereâs a perception of him â not just from the people within the world of the story but people who have now seen the show â that heâs got kind of a reputation and you learn as you go on that heâs very insecure, heâs lonely a lot of the time. He just wants to be connected to the people that he cares about. He gets in his own way a lot of the time. But truthfully, heâs just someone who has a big, big heart. And it gets broken more than once.â
Woodall humbly scoffs when asked what heâs learned about what goes into playing a leading man â âOh, I still donât know. Honestly, thereâs so many things to figure out still. The very beginning of shooting, I didnât exactly know which foot to put forward. Then I was like, âJust do your job and be nice.ââ But heâs enthusiastic about this chapter in his story.
âItâs pretty sweet, pretty fun,â he says. âIâve been away from home for a very long time, and that can have its effects on your happiness. So Iâm back in London now, and Iâm very happy to be back and see all my people and still work. I hope that I can keep it up. Thatâs the game of acting, you just never know. There is a momentum that exists.â