Art Parkinson gives Kubo and the Two Strings a young hero who sounds as though he is still working things out. We value that uncertainty: it keeps the performance human when the writing risks becoming a lesson.
Fi1m perspective
Listen to the uncertainty in Art Parkinson’s voice in Kubo and the Two Strings (2016). He gives a young hero room to sound unsure, and we recommend the performance warmly. We were moved by Kubo, because Parkinson keeps the boy’s vulnerability audible in an adventure concerned with loss. There is a risk in giving a child so much to convey about the importance of stories; his delivery keeps the part from becoming a small lecture.
He became widely known as Rickon Stark in Game of Thrones (2011–2016), within a career largely built around boys in fantasy, horror and action. Dracula Untold (2014), in which he plays Ingeras, and San Andreas (2015), as Ollie Taylor, belong to that early run of supporting film parts. Those credits establish the kinds of work he was given, rather than proving how much he could do with them. The lead voice role in Kubo and the Two Strings offered a clearer opportunity to hear what he brought to a character.
Travis Knight’s Kubo and the Two Strings gives him useful contrasts in Charlize Theron’s firm Monkey and Matthew McConaughey’s looser Beetle. Parkinson’s less certain delivery helps keep the three companions distinct, even when their exchanges become familiar. The jokes are a weakness: some feel inserted to meet a family film’s expected quota, interrupting characters who are more interesting when they take their circumstances seriously. Parkinson benefits from those serious passages. His contribution is easy to undervalue if we judge voice acting chiefly by how conspicuously an actor performs it.
Later work includes Rob Armstrong in The Bay (2019–2021), part of a move towards smaller films and British and Irish television after those prominent childhood roles. Those early parts should not become a fixed description of what he can do. We would like to see him given more work that makes use of the hesitancy heard in Kubo, rather than simply demanding confidence. Start with Knight’s film, with some patience for the laboured jokes and a quest that becomes harder to follow than it needs to be.
Biography
Art Parkinson is an Irish actor. Born on 19 October 2001 in Moville, County Donegal, he began his professional career at the age of seven.
He is best known for portraying Rickon Stark in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011–2016) and for voicing the title character in the animated film Kubo and the Two Strings (2016). Other film roles include Ollie Taylor in San Andreas (2015), Ingeras in Dracula Untold (2014), and Gary Dunne in Love, Rosie (2014).
Parkinson has also appeared in I Kill Giants (2017), Zoo (2018), and The Bay (2019–2021). His mother, Movania Parkinson, is an actress who runs a local drama school.
