If you’re anything like me (a.k.a. born before the digital evolution consumed each and every waking moment of our lives), you spent your younger years wishing you were the star of some action-packed Hollywood blockbuster, wasting hours attempting to imitate the likes of Indiana Jones and James Bond. For Surrey-born teenager Tom Taylor, he’s living out a dream that most of us were forced to forget.

After starring in one of the summer’s biggest flicks, an adaption of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower alongside industry heavyweights Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, the 16-year-old has kickstarted a career that’s set to soar. “When I first read the script I thought it was really magical,” he tells me one overcast afternoon in Hoxton after he’s finished what he says is his first fashion shoot — no doubt his first of many. “I did about seven auditions. They flew us out to LA because they couldn’t make their mind up between me and somebody else. A couple of weeks later I was making breakfast on Mother’s Day, and I saw a text that said, ‘Tom’s got the role’. I didn’t know what to do, it was weird to think that I was going to be in Hollywood.”

This foray into the world of megabuck movies enabled him to pick up advice from his new A-list peers. “One of Matthew’s phrases was, ‘We’re in the make believe so let’s make people believe’.” Taylor also details McConaughey’s dedication to his craft, telling me that he didn’t meet the Oscar-winning actor for a while as a result of the fact he “didn’t want to take himself out of the role too much.” A pretty major project with some pretty mega stars, The Dark Tower’s not bad for a first feature film.

One of seven, Taylor cut his teeth in the acting world through a weekend drama class that his mum sent him to alongside five of his siblings. “Obviously she wanted to get us out of the house for a bit,” he jokes. “Acting luckily fell into place for me; I was in the right place at the right time.” Following his turn as Jack Chambers in The Dark Tower, Taylor more recently returned to our screens for the second series of the BAFTA award-winning Doctor Foster, BBC’s homegrown drama, where he plays the son of Suranne Jones’ scorned wife Gemma Foster. The juxtaposition between the roles highlights Taylor’s ability to mould himself to a plethora of different characters — a telling sign that his career’s destined to be a big one.

Despite already racking up quite the impressive CV, Taylor is still very much a down-to-earth young lad from Surrey. He admits that his greatest pleasures come when hanging out with his mates, playing football, and frequenting the odd house party. And his hopes for the future are equally as modest. “I’d just like to be acknowledged as a good actor rather than just being an idiot or for messing around, whatever happens!” We’ll take that.

Tom is set to star in Joe Cornish’s upcoming film The Kid Who Would Be King.

Taken from the Autumn/Winter 17 Issue of Rollacoaster; out now and available to buy here.