Roman Griffin Davis

In Jojo Rabbit (2019), Roman Griffin Davis lets doubt show in a boy who would rather be certain. He gives Jojo enough hesitation for us to see the child beneath the beliefs, without asking us to excuse them. We were moved by his exchanges with Thomasin McKenzie's Elsa, because he makes questioning those beliefs feel difficult rather than conveniently instructive. The performance stays funny without treating the boy as someone who exists only to deliver grown-up jokes.

Taika Waititi gave Davis his professional debut in that leading role, and it remains the clearest evidence of what he can do. The film's warmth owes much to Scarlett Johansson too, while McKenzie's wariness makes Elsa matter independently of anything Jojo might learn from her. McKenzie gives him somebody with fears of her own, and their scenes keep a tension that might have disappeared had Elsa been there simply to help him become a better boy. Waititi occasionally overplays the imaginary Hitler, and the contrast makes the less insistent acting around him more valuable. Davis holds our attention in those quieter exchanges without losing the awkwardness of a child who has much to unlearn.

The move into supporting parts gives us less room to judge him. After playing Art in Camille Griffin's dark comedy Silent Night (2021), he appears as Curly in Francis Lawrence's The Long Walk (2025). There, something as ordinary as a cramp becomes frightening, and Davis gives the film a vulnerable young presence without much time to establish it. Lawrence's refusal to soften what happens carries much of the force. It is effective casting, though a brief part gives us less to assess than the earlier lead.

Voicing Walter Dickens in The King of Kings (2025) takes him into animation, though it is too soon for us to call any one kind of part his speciality. We would like to see him given another role with enough time to be funny, mistaken and unsure of himself. His debut gives us reason to hope that a director will allow him that space again. Start with Jojo Rabbit, where he gets the time to make us care.