'The Legend of Zelda' Elevates British Child Stars to Blockbuster Leads

One of the unspoken laws of the Hollywood A-list is that once you're in, as long as you don't burn bridges, you stay in. It doesn't matter if the initial big-budget film you starred in is a flop. Heck, some actors have entire runs of bad choices before the proper role comes along. This holds especially true for younger British actors, who can launch a career despite significant failures: Ben Barnes (Prince Caspian), Asa Butterfield (Ender's Game), and Jodie Whittaker (The Kid Who Would Be King) are notable examples from this century.

This is a roundabout way of saying that even if the forthcoming The Legend of Zelda big-screen adaptation flops, the two British child stars who have just been announced in the roles of Link and Zelda are still worth noting. Whether or not Sony and Nintendo's co-production to bring the iconic, long-running 1980s-era video game franchise to the big screen works doesn't matter. (It should be noted, very few video game films do.) British actors Bo Bragason (The Jetty) and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth (The Sandman) just got their big breaks.

Bragason is particularly noteworthy as the titular Zelda. The actor has been everywhere in the last year. Along with her role opposite Jenna Coleman in The Jetty, she also co-starred in Disney+'s Renegade Nell, played Kelly Macdonald and Damian Lewis' vampiric daughter in The Radleys, and will next be seen as the real-life Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, in the James Norton/Nikolaj Coster-Waldau series, King & Conqueror.