In an interview with The Sunday Times, Boyle said that after he was expelled from school at 16 because of “behavioural problems”, he knew he needed to create his own opportunities if he wanted to succeed in the industry.
When he was 17, he made the short comedy, Pillow Talk, which can be found on YouTube.
“I just wanted to create. I wanted to write. I got expelled from school aged 16 and I would go on the internet to look up ‘Belfast male acting auditions’. I showed up to everything I could,” he said.
“When I was younger, I had behavioural problems. If someone told me not to push the red button, I f***ing slammed it. I learnt to put all my energy into the craft.”
The star’s big break came after a role in The Lyric theatre led to a place at drama school in Wales.
However, he didn’t complete the course and instead was picked to play Scorpius Malfoy in Jack Thorne and JK Rowling’s play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in the West End in 2016.
It gave him exposure and, more importantly, financial stability.
“So many people in the arts do well simply because they are rich,” he said. “But it’s so hard for working-class artists to flourish.”
He also recalled meeting Tom Hanks in a hotel bar in England before another day of boot camp on wartime drama Masters of the Air, which will be broadcast on Apple TV+ from Friday.
Hanks is a co-producer with Steven Spielberg on the series.
Boyle explained: “Tom said to me, ‘I’ve watched all your material. I feel like I’ve known you my whole life’.
“And I replied, ‘You’re not going to believe this, Tom, but I feel like I’ve known you my whole life too!’
“He has made so many war dramas and he talked about never resorting to sentimentality and always being present in a scene.”
Anthony Boyle in Masters of the Air
Masters of the Air tells the story of the 100th Bomb Group of the US Eighth Air Force, which flew missions over Germany during the Second World War.
The 29-year-old plays American navigator Harry Crosby and shares the screen with Austin Butler, Callum Turner, Barry Keoghan and Fionn O’Shea.
Boyle immersed himself in the life of Crosby, who died in 2010 but left behind interviews and a memoir, A Wing and a Prayer.
“I’d walk around my flat doing his voice and his mannerisms. This guy was heroic. The loss of life from the 100th Bomb Group was insane: losing friends, losing brothers.”
Boyle, who has become a regular on our screens playing historical figures, admits that he “wasn’t good” at history at school.
He starred in the biographical film Tolkien about the author JRR Tolkien, and in BBC drama Danny Boy he played a soldier accused of war crimes in Iraq.
In Manhunt, about the murder of US President Abraham Lincoln, he plays his killer John Wilkes Booth.
The drama will be released in March, also on Apple TV+.
“I wasn’t good at history at school, but I become obsessed with it at work,” Boyle said.
“I want to know everything about the period the drama is set in. I get entrenched in it. When I played Booth, I was riding horses and hanging out with cowboys.”
Meanwhile, Boyle returns to the London stage in March for the play Long Day’s Journey into Night, by Eugene O’Neill.
He describes his character, Edmund Tyrone, as “an alcoholic who has tuberculosis — another laugh-a-minute project”.
He is sharing the stage with Brian Cox and added: “Like everyone else, I watched him in Succession. I’ve looked up to him for so long. I’m very lucky.”
Masters of the Air airs this Friday on Apple TV+. Long Day’s Journey into Night is at Wyndham’s Theatre, London, from March 19 to June 8
