Bravo Romeo: Screen heart-throb Douglas Booth enjoys life in the capital before Hollywood fame takes hold

Douglas Booth is on the cusp of Hollywood stardom with a raft of major films lined up — and he is trying to soak up life as an ordinary Londoner before everything changes.

The 21-year-old actor has already enjoyed a wide variety of roles — from playing Matt Smith’s lover in the BBC Isherwood biopic Christopher and His Kind, to acting alongside Maggie Smith and Timothy Spall in From Time to Time and being Emma Watson’s sizzling sidekick in the 2008 Burberry campaign.

Now he is set to appear as Romeo in Julian Fellowes’s film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, will feature in Noah alongside Russell Crowe and is also starring in Jupiter Ascending with Mila Kunis and Sean Bean.

In an interview with the Evening Standard’s ES Magazine, Booth — who shares a flat with his sister in Borough — said his life is a stark contrast to that of his friends who are still at university. When they tell him about wild nights out in Leeds, he replies: “Yeah … last night I was in New York with Hillary Clinton.”

The actor, who has been romantically linked with actress Vanessa Kirby, said: “I can’t complain. So far it has happened nice and slowly. It’s not crazy like Rob (Robert Pattinson), where one second it was one way and the next completely different.

“That’s unhealthy and unstable, because you don’t build a foundation for yourself; I think I have managed to do that first.

“I was 17 when I did the Boy George thing (BBC drama Worried About the Boy), and I have been working professionally since I was 16. It’s very important to hold on to what you want.

“In front of you is very easy fame and very easy money. But right now that’s not what I feel like. The other day I stopped in Piccadilly and sat on the Eros statue, just taking in London and the sights and sounds, and thought, “One day soon this is going to be impossible.”

Read the full interview in tomorrow’s ES Magazine