Aaron Perry Taylor-Johnson is an English actor. He began performing at age six and has appeared in films such as Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging and The Illusionist. He then moved onto starring roles in Nowhere Boy, in which he played John Lennon; Kick-Ass and its sequel Kick-Ass 2, in which he played the title character; and the monster movie Godzilla. He was known as Aaron Johnson until he began being billed as Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Kick-Ass 2, legally changing his name after marrying director Sam Taylor-Wood.
Johnson was born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, the son of a housewife mother and civil engineer father. He attended the Jackie Palmer Stage School in High Wycombe between 1996 and 2008, where he was tutored in drama, tap, jazz, acrobatics, and singing.
Johnson began acting at the age of six, starring in The Thief Lord, as Prosper; performing as the son of Macduff alongside Rufus Sewell playing the lead role in Macbeth in 1999; and in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons in 2000. His television roles have included Niker in the 2004 BBC adaptation of the novel Feather Boy, Aaron in Danny Brocklehurst’s ITV1 serial Talk to Me, and Owen Stephens in Nearly Famous. In 2003, Johnson appeared as a young Charlie Chaplin in Shanghai Knights. In 2006, he appeared in The Illusionist, appearing in the early flashback scenes as Edward Norton’s character, Eduard Abramovicz, as a teenager. The scenes show the young Eduard as he first learns magic, and to do this, Johnson had to learn how to perform the ball trick displayed by his character. He learned how to perform the balancing of the egg on the stick, although that was effected mechanically.
Johnson appeared as John Lennon in the 2009 biopic film Nowhere Boy, directed by Sam Taylor-Wood. In 2010, Johnson appeared as David “Dave” Lizewski/Kick-Ass, the lead character Kick-Ass, based on the superhero comic book of the same name by Mark Millar, and has appeared as the central character, William, in Hideo Nakata’s Chatroom. In December 2010, Johnson joined the cast of Albert Nobbs as a replacement for Orlando Bloom, who dropped out of the production due to his wife’s pregnancy. Johnson starred in R.E.M.’s 2011 music video “Überlin”, which was also directed by his then-fiancée.
In 2012, Johnson played Count Vronsky in Anna Karenina. Later that year, he starred in Oliver Stone’s Savages. HitFix film critic Drew McWeeny was positive of the bond between Johnson and co-star Taylor Kitsch, which “seems not only credible but lived in and authentic throughout the film”, and noted the evolution in maturity of Johnson since Kick-Ass. Johnson starred in the Godzilla reboot, released in May 2014. Aaron will play Quicksilver in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, the sequel to The Avengers. He first appeared as the character in a post-credits scene of the film Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The role reunites him with Elizabeth Olsen, who played his wife in Godzilla, as his twin sister in Avengers.
In 2016, he played Ray, a menacing Texan, in Tom Ford’s thriller Nocturnal Animals. For the role, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture. Taylor-Johnson also became first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor winner since Richard Benjamin who did not receive an Academy Award nomination. For the role he also received a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In 2017, he played an American soldier (alongside John Cena) in Doug Liman’s thriller The Wall, and in 2018, he appeared in Outlaw King, a British-American historical action drama about Robert the Bruce and the Wars of Scottish Independence.
In 2020, Taylor-Johnson had a supporting role in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. In 2022, he appeared in David Leitch’s Bullet Train, an action-thriller film based on the novel Mariabītoru by Kōtarō Isaka.
Taylor-Johnson will next play another Marvel character in Kraven the Hunter, set to be released in 2023 as part of the Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. He will also reunite with Leitch in the action film The Fall Guy, and star in Robert Eggers horror film Nosferatu.
Johnson began a relationship with his Nowhere Boy director, Sam Taylor-Wood. The couple announced their engagement at the film’s premiere in October 2009. The couple have two daughters, Wylda Rae (born 7 July 2010) and Romy Hero (born 18 January 2012). Johnson and Taylor-Wood married at Babington House, Somerset on 21 June 2012. Johnson adopted part of his wife’s surname (birth surname) as part of his professional name.
