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The Night Manager star hopes his new film with British acting legends leads to "philosophical debate"
Noah Jupe stars alongside Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton in new drama & Sons – out this week in UK cinemas.
Icon Film Distribution
- Patrick Cremona
Published: Thursday, 20 August 2026 at 5:01 pm
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At the age of just 21, Noah Jupe has built up a mighty impressive filmography across the last decade or so – with major credits in everything from A Quiet Place to Hamnet, and The Night Manager to The Undoing.
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In that time, he's worked with a huge array of major stars, and he's added a fair few more to that list with his latest film & Sons, which is released in UK cinemas this Friday (21 August).
The film – which originally debuted at last year's Toronto International Film Festival – sees him share the screen with Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton and Dominic West, to name just three of the starry cast, with key roles also for George MacKay and Johnny Flynn.
He plays Andy Dyer, the youngest of three sons of a reclusive, alcoholic novelist (Nighy) who – relatively early on – reveals a startling piece of information to his older children (MacKay and Flynn) that shifts the film beyond the realm of the traditional family drama.
It's best not to reveal the exact nature of that bombshell here, but speaking to Radio Times ahead of the film's release, Jupe explained how he hopes it opens up some interesting discussions among cinemagoers.
"I think it's a conversation about nature v nurture," he said. "And do we really have a choice in who we are, or are we always meant to be that person?
"And yeah, I believe that we do [have a choice] and I believe that there are many different permutations of who you can be lying in front of you, and you choose those."
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The film also tackles the subject of alcoholism, which Jupe acknowledges is rather more complicated, pointing out that an addictive personality is something you can be born with.
"Bill talks about it as well," he said. "It's a disease that you you inherit through your parents, and so that's something that potentially you'll have to deal with for the rest of your life.
"It's just how you choose to deal with it, how much you fight it, how much you give into it. I don't know. I think it's a conversation. It's a philosophical debate on a lot of things.
"Even the twist is a philosophical debate," he continued. "And so I hope people talk about it, and I hope they debate about it, because at the end you're meant to feel a bit like that."
Jupe clearly relished working with the film's ensemble, describing Nighy as "a special man" and revealing that the pair developed a friendship that saw the Oscar nominee giving him "homework" in the form of music recommendations.
"He's got this energy that is just so lovely and kind and welcoming and also he's super motivated to do the best that he can," he said.
"But he's also sort of asking questions a lot, and and makes you feel like you're helping him out while he's helping you out. There's a conversation, which is really cool.
"And also, just like some of the chats we had, he was telling me about his whole life and sort of his journey, which is a fascinating journey from where he came from to now and how he fell into acting."
These kind of conversations seem especially meaningful to Jupe, given he's been acting on film sets from such a young age (one of his first screen credits was an episode of Downton Abbey in 2015, when he was just 10 years old).
And he said he's noted a shift in how older actors interact with him now he's a little more experienced and no longer necessarily the baby of the set.
Noah Jupe in & Sons. Icon Film Distribution
"I mean, it still happens," he said. "I'm yet to go on a film set where I'm not still treated like the kid a little bit. But it's developing to a point where I walk into a room now and maybe other people have seen my work, so there's more of a respect there, I guess.
"And then there's more of a...'Oh, this person is becoming an adult now', and [people] starting to treat me like an adult, and it's interesting.
"It's sort of it's a tough dynamic when you're at work and there's a kid in the room, and you're trying to do your work, which is really emotional and often quite dark in the projects I've done.
"You're speaking about abusing a kid in front of a kid in the room – and that's so complicated. So it's nice to be older now and people don't have to censor themselves or hold themselves back!"
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& Sons is released in UK cinemas on Friday 21 August 2026.
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Authors
Patrick CremonaSenior Film Writer
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
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