Archie Madekwe Rising Star: How Saltburn’s Most Suspicious Character Became Hollywood’s Most Wanted

When Saltburn exploded across social media in late 2023, everyone talked about Barry Keoghan’s scheming Oliver, Jacob Elordi’s magnetic Felix, and that bathtub scene. Almost no one talked about Archie Madekwe’s Farleigh Start — the sharp-tongued, suspicious American cousin who clocked Oliver’s game the second he walked through the door.

That oversight has since been corrected. Archie Madekwe is now a BAFTA EE Rising Star Award nominee. Hollywood Reporter named him one of their eight hottest young stars in Hollywood. He is six foot five, models for Loewe, leads a Prime Video heist series alongside Sophie Turner, and had Marion Cotillard stop him at a party to tell him she had just watched Saltburn the night before and thought he was actually American.

The question is not whether Madekwe has arrived. It is how he got here — and why it took longer than it should have.

Quick Facts: Archie Madekwe

The Cousin Who Came First

To understand Archie Madekwe’s career, it helps to know about his cousin.

Ashley Madekwe — older, already established, BAFTA-nominated for her role in County Lines — attended the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology. When Archie Madekwe was 14, he followed her there. The school has produced an absurd concentration of British talent: Amy Winehouse, Adele, Tom Holland, Jessie J, Kate Nash. It is where working-class and middle-class London kids with something burning go when a regular school cannot hold it.

From the BRIT School, Madekwe moved to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) — one of the UK’s most rigorous conservatoires. He did not finish the programme. Before he could, he was cast in the West End production of Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? alongside Damian Lewis. He left LAMDA early and took the job. That choice, made in his early twenties, tells you something important about how he makes decisions.

The Years of Building the Foundation

Madekwe’s first screen credits were British television — the kind of early grind that either prepares an actor or discourages them. He had a recurring role in Hang Ups (2018), the Channel 4 comedy series. He appeared in the BBC’s acclaimed adaptation of Les Misérables the same year. Small parts, strong shows, no spotlight.

Then came Teen Spirit (2018) — director Max Minghella’s debut feature with Elle Fanning. Madekwe had a supporting role and Minghella noticed. That is not nothing. In an industry where the most important asset you can build is the trust of directors, being noticed by a first-time director who is also the son of a legendary filmmaker is a signal worth tracking.

The role that first gave Madekwe sustained screen time was in Apple TV+’s See (2019) — the sci-fi series starring Jason Momoa, set in a future where humanity has lost its sight. Madekwe played Kofun, one of Momoa’s character’s children. See ran three seasons. It built a fanbase, produced consistent work, and gave Madekwe the experience of carrying sustained dramatic scenes in a major streaming production.

In the same year — 2019 — he was one of the group ritually targeted in Ari Aster’s Midsommar. His role was small. The film was not. Anyone associated with Ari Aster’s work carries a certain cultural currency, and Midsommar became one of the defining horror films of the decade.

Gran Turismo and the Lesson About Timing

By 2023, Madekwe had spent five years building screen presence without a breakout. Then two major films arrived within weeks of each other.

The first was Gran Turismo — director Neill Blomkamp’s sports drama based on the true story of Jann Mardenborough, the gamer who qualified for Le Mans by winning a video game competition. Madekwe played Mardenborough in the lead. The film was a $60 million studio production from Sony. It required him to train as a racing driver, handle extensive physical preparation, and carry a commercial action film as the central character.

The film opened in August 2023 directly into a strike. The SAG-AFTRA work stoppage prevented cast members from doing press, interviews, or social media promotion. A film that needed its lead actor to evangelize for it was effectively silenced at the moment it most needed a voice.

“I got all of the lessons I think I needed as an actor for myself and my career out of it,” Madekwe said later. “I grew so much, and so I’ll be forever grateful for it.” But the timing cost the film a larger audience than it deserved — and cost Madekwe a visibility moment that should have landed.

Saltburn, Farleigh, and the Role That Broke Through Anyway

Two months later, Saltburn arrived.

Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn cast Madekwe as Farleigh Start — Felix Catton’s American cousin, financially dependent on the family, privately contemptuous of Barry Keoghan’s Oliver, and ultimately the only character in the film who reads the situation correctly from the start. He is right about everything. It saves him from nothing.

Madekwe’s Farleigh is precise in a way the role demands but rarely gets. He plays the resentment exactly right — not as villainy, but as the protective instinct of someone who has spent years watching wealthy family members be charmed by people who want something, and has learned to spot it. The scene where he confronts Oliver in the library is one of the film’s best-written exchanges, and Madekwe holds it without blinking.

Marion Cotillard, who Madekwe cites as one of the performances that made him want to act in the first place, stopped him at an industry event after seeing Saltburn. “She was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I just watched Saltburn last night — I thought you were American!'” He and Cotillard ended up having a long conversation.

He has been clear that the film did not make him suddenly rich. “You don’t get this sudden injection of cash, which a lot of people think happens.” But it opened doors that had previously been closed, and it confirmed — to the industry and to himself — that he could hold a scene in a film commanding global attention.

Lurker, the BAFTA Nomination, and What Comes Next

In 2025, Archie Madekwe starred in Lurker — the debut feature of director Alex Russell (writer on Beef and The Bear). Madekwe plays Oliver, a British musician whose growing friendship with a starstruck retail worker played by Théodore Pellerin spirals into obsession. The film premiered at Sundance, was acquired by MUBI for the US and Focus Features internationally, and premiered at Berlin.

The role required something different from anything he had done before. Previous work put him in reactive or suspicious mode — the person in the room who is watching. As Oliver, he had to embody the watched: the celebrity whose charisma is also a kind of trap, whose openness invites people to misread it as invitation.

To prepare, he reached out to Rex Orange County — a British musician he knew personally who had made a similar transition from UK obscurity to international fame. Rex Orange County contributed a song from his new album to the film.

Lurker earned Madekwe his first BAFTA Film Award nomination for the EE Rising Star Award in 2025.

He is currently in production on Steal — a Prime Video heist series co-starring Sophie Turner. He also models for Loewe, and at 6’5″ with the training of a LAMDA student and the instincts of a West End cast member, he occupies physical and dramatic space in a way that is genuinely rare.

He is 31. He has been building this career for over a decade. He has been careful, largely quiet about his personal life, and resistant to the kind of overexposure that burns out careers at this stage.

Actors like Ayo Edebiri move from obscurity to global recognition in three years. Actors like Kieran Culkin take thirty years and win an Oscar. Madekwe is somewhere in between — a decade of work, a BAFTA nomination, and a clear sense that the phase he is entering now is the one he has been preparing for since he left LAMDA mid-course to be in a play with Damian Lewis.

He was always going to get here. The only question was when.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Archie Madekwe?

Archie Madekwe is a British actor born on February 10, 1995, in Lambeth, South London. He is of English, Nigerian, and Swiss descent and is the cousin of BAFTA-nominated actress Ashley Madekwe. He trained at the BRIT School and LAMDA before leaving early to perform in a West End production. He is best known for his role as Farleigh Start in Saltburn (2023) and was nominated for the BAFTA EE Rising Star Award in 2025 for his lead performance in Lurker.

What is Archie Madekwe known for?

Madekwe is best known for playing Farleigh Start — Jacob Elordi’s suspicious American cousin — in Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn (2023). He also starred as Jann Mardenborough in Gran Turismo (2023) and as the lead character Oliver in Lurker (2025), for which he received a BAFTA EE Rising Star Award nomination. He was named one of Hollywood Reporter’s eight hottest young stars in Hollywood and has appeared in Apple TV+’s See, Ari Aster’s Midsommar, and the BBC’s Les Misérables.

Is Archie Madekwe related to Ashley Madekwe?

Yes. Archie Madekwe and Ashley Madekwe are cousins. Ashley Madekwe is a British actress who received a BAFTA nomination for her role in County Lines. She attended the BRIT School before Archie, and he followed her there when he was 14 years old. Both actors are of Nigerian descent through their fathers.

What is Archie Madekwe’s net worth?

Madekwe’s net worth is estimated at between $3 million and $5 million as of 2026, based on his earnings from See (Apple TV+, three seasons), Gran Turismo (Sony Pictures), Saltburn, Heart of Stone (Netflix), and Lurker. He also earns income from modelling work for Loewe and other fashion brands. His upcoming Prime Video series Steal is expected to significantly raise his market rate.

What is Archie Madekwe doing in 2026?

In 2026, Archie Madekwe is in production on Steal, a heist series for Prime Video co-starring Sophie Turner. His BAFTA EE Rising Star nomination in 2025 for Lurker raised his international profile considerably. He continues to model for Loewe and take on projects that prioritise creative challenge over commercial visibility.

How tall is Archie Madekwe?

He is 6 feet 5 inches (196 cm) tall. His height is notable in an industry where physical presence on screen is commercially significant, and it partly contributes to his work as a model for Loewe alongside his acting career.