Skins is a UK teen drama that follows the lives of high school students as they balance sex, drugs, and studying for exams, and it featured the breakout roles of some major stars. The series was somewhat of an anthology as the first two seasons focused on one group of sixth-form students, and the next two seasons focused on a completely different set of kids, with the only connective tissue between the two being Effy Stonem (Kaya Scodelario). The students mostly had troubled homelives, destructive pleasure-seeking habits, and the weight of the world on their shoulders as they tried to make it into college.
Those exhaustive characters required some powerhouse acting, and while casting young actors can be challenging, Channel 4 found Britain's most talented actors. Most of them were no older than 17 and 18 at the time of the first season's release. One of the best LGBTQ+ shows on Hulu now, Skins sports a stellar cast full of actors who are now movie stars, including Nicholas Hoult, Daniel Kaluuya, and Dev Patel, and they have built impressive and unbelievable careers. Between Slumdog Millionaire, Maze Runner, the X-Men franchise, and many more, the cast of Skins' filmographies have made billions of dollars combined.
Dev Patel
As Skins attempted to portray a realistic version of school life in England, it had such a diverse range of characters. That was most clear with Anwar Kharrel (Dev Patel), who was often conflicted between his faith and his drinking habits and drug use. The character was by far the most likable of the entire ensemble, as he was honest and put his education first, but he still knew how to have a good time. But that's also why the end of his story arc is the most harrowing, as he got the worst grades of every character despite trying the hardest.
After Skins, Patel regretted starring in Avatar: The Last Airbender. The 2010 big-budget movie underperformed at the box office, making just $319 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo), and was hated by both critics and fans, having only 5% on Rotten Tomatoes and 4.0 on IMDb. However, the rest of Patel's post-Skins career has been one success after another outside of the M. Night Shyamalan-directed movie. And if it wasn't for the movie's failure, Patel might not have focused on independent dramas, and if that was the case, the actor wouldn't have starred in jaw-dropping movies like Lion and The Green Knight.
Nicholas Hoult
Hoult's career started long before Skins' first episode aired on Channel 4, as he played the titular character in the Hugh Grant-starring dramedy About a Boy. And it's hard to believe that the 11-year-old actor is the same star who played Tyler in The Menu. However, it was in Skins where he played the lead character, Tony, that Hoult started getting major attention. He first appears in episode 1 as a charmer with the voice of an angel, which brilliantly contrasted with his true personality. Tony was way more antisocial than he let on and rather antagonistic, as he encouraged bad behavior, but he was redeemed in season 2.
Hoult has clearly had the most successful career of the Skins cast, at least when measured by box office. The actor has starred in several X-Men movies as The Beast, and he has an undisclosed role in Mission: Impossible 7. However, even in blockbuster movies, Hoult's roles always have parallels to Tony. Mad Max: Fury Road saw him play Nux, a follower of evil leader Immortan Joe, but Nux later redeemed himself too. In his next appearance, Hoult will play the titular role in the Nicolas Cage-starring Dracula movie, Renfield, which will see him combine his comedic timing with horror, something the actor has never done before.
Joe Dempsie
While most of the characters in Skins are party animals, Chris Miles (Joe Dempsie) is the wildest of them all. Just like his friends, Chris' pleasure-seeking habits stem from a rough home life, as he's left to take care of himself, his uncaring father, and his estranged mother following his brother's death. Though every actor made their characters their own, Dempsie arguably gave the most powerful performance in the entire series. The emotional toll and baggage that came with Chris would be tough for most 17-year-old actors to portray, but Dempsie delivered monologues and morbid actions like he had a 50-year career behind him.
Though he hasn't had much of a movie career, Dempsie has become a go-to TV actor, with the obvious example being his role as Gendry Baratheon in Game of Thrones. Dempsie unsurprisingly continued his career after Skins with one powerhouse performance after another, even if it was on the small screen. And while not many of the shows he has starred in have found large audiences overseas, Dempsie remains a popular actor in the UK. British dramas like This Is England '90 and One of Us are perfect platforms for Dempsie's signature troubled, lost-in-the-world characters affected by family relationships and the UK economy.
Kaya Scodelario
Though the Maze Runner series got some brutal reviews, that's where Scodelario is known from most, but seven years before she starred in the young adult novel adaptation, she played Effy Stonem in Skins. Effy is Tony's younger sister, and though she's a lot different from the antagonistic character, she has clearly been affected by her brother. Effy is vulnerable, distant, and afraid of commitment, but of course, still indulges in all of the sex, drugs, and rock and roll that became the series' trademark. Scodelario was by far the youngest actor in Skins, as she was cast as Effy when she was just 14 years old.
Scordelario went on to star in some major blockbuster movies, such as The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and the most recent Resident Evil adaptation, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. The future looks even brighter for her, as the Pirates of the Caribbean 6 might bring Scodelario back, and she'll be starring in the TV series continuation of Guy Ritchie's crime film, The Gentlemen. Given that the actress is quintessentially British, became known for playing the "bad girl," and has a sense of style, there's no project more fitting for Scodelario than a Ritchie production.
Hannah Murray
Cassie Ainsworth (Hannah Murray) is another character who has both a troubled home and school life. The character is ignored by her parents due to the birth of their new baby, and she tries to hide her mental health issues and her eating disorder from her friends. Mental health representation in television is important, and Skins does a great job of delicately depicting the struggles of having an eating disorder with Cassie. Her closest friend is Effy, and because Effy is the it-girl of the school, their friendship only makes Cassie's issues worse, and it's the most toxic of all the relationships in Skins.
Dating all the way back to her first foray into film, Murray hasn't had much success when it comes to movies. The actor had a role in the cult classic In Bruges, which was cut from the final version of the film. And a few years later, she starred in Dark Shadows, one of the worst Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter movies. However, she had much more success in television, and just like Dempsie, Murray found a new home on TV with Game of Thrones. The actor had a recurring role as Gilly in the early seasons, then became part of the main cast in the last five seasons.
Daniel Kaluuya
Kaluuya didn't have a main role in Skins, as he played the recurring character Posh Kenneth, but the character does spend a lot of time with the main group. The role immediately put Kaluuya on the map, as Kenneth is a social butterfly who blends in with both upper and working-class social groups, and he tries to make it as a rapper. Posh Kenneth established Kaluuya's trademark stoic manner and wit, but the actor had more duties in the celebrated series than just acting; Kaluuya was a contributing writer and even the head writer for the season 2 episode "Jal."
Though Kaluuya should be the next James Bond villain, he's already been busy creating new iconic characters of his own ever since Skins ended. His work with writer-director Jordan Peele has been particularly resonating, as Chris in Get Out and OJ in Nope are two roles that perfectly capture what the actor is best at — grounded, dramatic acting and dry humor. But most impressively, Kaluuya is the first and so far only Skins actor to win an Academy Award for acting, as his role as Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah earned him the Best Supporting Actor statuette.
Jack O'Connell
James Cook (Jack O'Connell) is the promiscuous, womanizing, and self-destructive male antagonist of the second-generation Skins cast, and he took the series to a whole new exciting level. O'Connell's character on the show was by far the most multifaceted than any other. Between Cook's alpha-male exterior being a smoke screen for his real self and the character's rampant and frantic energy that rarely slowed down, O'Connell showed so much range as an actor so early in his career. The actor continued that serialized success with the Westworld-inspired Netflix western, Godless, but he went on to find do even bigger things.
That intense Skins performance obviously led to a range of vastly different offers in Hollywood, whether it was starring in the exciting Jodie Foster-directed crime thriller Money Monster alongside George Clooney or playing a war hero in Angelina Jolie's Unbroken. But there's one clear theme that threads most of O'Connell's filmography together. Between Unbroken, '71, and Trial by Fire, O'Connell has become a go-to actor for historical dramas (particularly war biopics). That theme will continue, as the actor will play Peter Collins, the real-life racing driver, in Michael Mann's upcoming biopic, Ferrari, which is the celebrated director's first movie since 2015's Blackhat.