Spotlight on: Asa Butterfield

Lights off, spotlight on! Time to see in which series this actress portrayed a character. At the age of only eleven years old, it is the first time this actor is part of a series. Asa Butterfield can then be seen in an episode of Ashes to Ashes. Two years earlier, at the age of nine, he made his first screen appearance when he portrayed Andrew in the television movie After Thomas.

Since then, Butterfield has gotten a lot further in his career on both the big and the small screen. The actor, who was also nominated for MySeries series of the year 2020 actor category, regularly switches between movies and series. And no matter what you personally think of him, he seems to be doing quite well.

For example, in 2008, in the same year when he was part of Ashes to Ashes, he could also be seen in the movie The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. The producers of the movie looked for a young boy who could symbolize innocence. Butterfield's knowledge of the holocaust wasn't that big at the time, something that made it possible to give his character some more depth.

In that same year, he shines in several episodes of the fantasy series Merlin. As the young version of Mordred, it seems like he's a dead man walking when Uther Pendragon (Anthony Stewart Head, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) - the king of Camelot - feels threatened by magic. The character returns later, as an adult. Unfortunately, Butterfield is too young to portray this adult Mordred.

Nonetheless, the actor doesn't sit idle. He also appears in the movies Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, Ender's Game and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. All three of these movies do fairly well with the target audience, families.

At the time, it seems to make sense that Butterfield wants to expand his career on the big screen. He portrays various characters in quite a few movies. But the true success seems to be out of sight for a bit.

In 2017, Butterfield briefly turns to voice acting, even though it is limited to only one episode in Thunderbirds Are Go! Nonetheless, he does return to it later. Maybe that this small break has to do with a project he ends up in at the time, the production of a new Netflix series.

Naturally, we're talking about Sex Education. In a series, this is Butterfield's first real lead role. He portrays Otis Thompson, a boy who isn't as socially skilled and is confronted at middle school with the fact that his mom is a sex therapist.

What works in Sex Education is his relationship with Maeve (Emma Mackey), with whom he sets up a small -sex-clinic to help their fellow students with their issues. It provides quite a bit of hilarious television, which a lot of viewers seem to have liked. A third season is currently in the works.

That doesn't mean that Butterfield is fully occupied with Sex Education. He was also part of Quibi's 50 States of Fright, a horror series that investigates the folklore of the American continent. Projects that follow are the animated movie Watch the Skies and the comedy The Liar. For now, we can't wait for the third season of Sex Education. Hopefully, that'll be packed with just as many awkward questions.

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