Meet Alfie Williams, the Film’s 14-Year-Old Star

2025 has been a banner year for young British actors.

First came Owen Cooper, the 15-year-old star of Netflix smash hit “Adolescence,” who made such an impact from his very first screen role he’s now tipped to become the youngest Emmy winner for supporting actor in a limited or anthology series. Then a trio of newcomers was announced to fill the roles made famous by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint in HBO’s much-hyped “Harry Potter” series. Dominic McLaughlin, Arabella Stanton and Alastair Stout, all 11 years old or thereabouts and picked from a casting search of thousands of wannabe Harrys, Hermiones and Rons, look set to have the next decades of their lives — at least — mapped out for them.

Now it’s the turn of 14-year-old Alfie Williams.

Even before anyone has seen the youngster act, they may have spotted him on film posters. On billboards across the U.K., Williams — who hails from the north of England, near Newcastle — is there, at the top of a giant tower of skulls. It’s an unusual and somewhat bleak introduction for anyone, not least a teenager, but it’s all part of the ride when you’re the young lead of Danny Boyle‘s post-apocalyptic horror sequel “28 Years Later,” a film awash in death, blood and, yes, skeletal remains.

The film — releasing via Sony Pictures on June 20 — lands almost a quarter-century after the iconic and genre-defining original “28 Days Later.” Set almost three decades since the super-contagious rage virus escaped from a biological weapons factory and ravaged the world, the new movie sees the U.K. now a quarantine zone, a desolate wasteland isolated from the rest of virus-free Europe and where the infected can run — and in some cases crawl — free. Survivors are simply left to fend for themselves.

In his first major screen role, Williams plays Spike, a young lad living with his mother (Jodie Comer) and father (Aaron…