The unlikely indie hero from the muddy banks of the Mississippi.

Jacket by DIOR HOMME, hat and jumper by PAUL SMITH

Search “Jacob Lofland” on YouTube and you’ll find a sweet, gap-toothed teen explaining, in excruciating detail, how he landed his debut film part in 2012 coming-of-age drama, MUD. “[It was] the most surreal day of my life,” the 19-year-old nervously recalls to Wonderland of his first day shooting. These days he’s calmer and cooler, and can count Reese Witherspoon and Chloë Sevigny amongst his co-stars.

Next year, he’ll reunite with MUD protagonist Matthew McConaughey for Free State of Jones. All grown up (well, nearly), Lofland tackles race, slavery and violence in his role in the Mississippi Civil War epic. Or at least that’s what we’ve managed to deduce: locked in Hollywood contracts, Lofland’s pretty hush-hush on the subject. “The film takes place in Jones County in southeastern Mississippi during the Civil War and is based on a true story about Newton Knight, “a farmer who rallied against the Confederate Army.”