Things aren’t going too badly for ex-Hurtwood student Harry Lawtey. Alongside playing Robert Spearing in three seasons of the BBC Two and HBO series ‘Industry’ (which according to The Guardian is the “best thing to watch on TV”), Harry has been making the transition to the movies. Having played small roles in Terence Davies’ war drama, ‘Benediction’, and ‘The Pale Blue Eye’ a Netflix adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe novel starring Christian Bale, he is now starring alongside Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix with a major role in ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’. In the sequel to Todd Phillips’s 1 billion dollar–grossing prestige take on the iconic Batman villain, Harry plays Gotham politician Harvey Dent (a.k.a. Two-Face). Harry told ‘The Cut’ magazine that he felt the weight of not only the DC Comics on which the movies are based and their fandom but also the weight of all the cinematic renditions of Batman and Harvey Dent that came before him. “I was so nervous in the months leading up to it, perilously so,” he remembers. “I was just aware of how seismic this was.”
Harry’s star has risen quickly. It was only a decade ago that Harry was excelling academically in English, Drama and Media Studies at Hurtwood, alongside playing leading roles in our musicals ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and ‘Chicago’. After leaving Hurtwood, Harry landed a place at ‘Drama Centre’ which boasts Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, and Michael Fassbender as fellow graduates. From there he was then taken on by the prestigious acting agent Hamilton Hodell and the rest is history. Harry has never forgotten the pivotal role Hurtwood played in his career. Thanking Cosmo Jackson, our headmaster Harry wrote that Hurtwood was “lifechanging”. He stated that his years here were “the very best two years of my life and I would be in a very different place without it.” Harry, Hurtwood salutes you!