It’s been over two decades since the Rage Virus wreaked havoc on the world in director Danny Boyle’s apocalyptic cult classic 28 Days Later, starring a relatively unknown Cillian Murphy as a courier who wakes up from a coma four weeks after a deadly virus has caused a zombie outbreak in London.
Fans enjoyed an update in 2007 with the standalone sequel 28 Weeks Later.
Now, a long-awaited third instalment, 28 Years Later (in cinemas June 19), will let audiences see how humanity has fared against fast-moving zombies. Boyle has returned to direct the reboot, which boasts a star-studded cast, including Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
“These are, like, the survivalists,” Aaron, 35, said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast in December of the plot of the movie, which will kick off a new trilogy of the franchise. “If you think about the [COVID] pandemic, of that two-year period, and then elongate that for 28 years, it just gives you so much imagination and fills in so much, but also layers of trauma, obviously.”
Shooting the project, which was filmed in part on an iPhone 15, was pure joy. “I feel like there’s not enough vocabulary to articulate how extraordinary this shoot was,” the actor continued. “I had one of the most incredible experiences on set ever, and I think that’s because Danny Boyle is an absolutely legendary filmmaker and director.
And the enthusiasm –he’s like a child and you just need to plug in and take some of that energy. It’s like electric and it invigorated and inspired me again to be an actor. I know it sounds bizarre, but there was a moment where you’re like, ‘Oh, I f–king love acting again.’”
Born Aaron Johnson on June 13, 1990 in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, Aaron first appeared on camera in a detergent ad as a 6-year-old, and paid his dues with minor roles on British TV dramas and in the theatre, before scoring his first Hollywood film role at age 10 opposite Jackie Chan in Shanghai Knights.
He rose to prominence at the age of 19, playing a young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy (2009), and has since become a household name with consistent work – Kick-Ass, Bullet Train, The Fall Guy, Nocturnal Animals – that has showcased his range.
“It’s not intentional for an audience perspective, so I don’t get pigeonholed as an actor, but I am someone who is constantly searching and curious and exploring and happy to experiment,” he told The Gentleman’s Journal in 2024 while promoting Nosferatu. “It’s more for me. I don’t change things up so I don’t get typecast, but I would genuinely just get bored if I just played the same role or person … I don’t position myself as a leading man, as I think that’s limiting. I don’t see myself in any way as just the leading man. As flattering as that is, I enjoy the versatility of doing it how I do things.”
One lead role he has been pegged for is that of Bond, James Bond. The actor has been considered a frontrunner to become the next 007 since Daniel Craig hung up his tuxedo after No Time to Die (2021).
The whispers grew louder in early March 2024 amid reports that Aaron was formally offered the role after nailing a secret screen test that impressed Bond franchise boss Barbara Broccoli. “Bond is Aaron’s job, should he wish to accept it,” a source reportedly told The Sun. “The formal offer is on the table, and they are waiting to hear back.”
Aaron has consistently been evasive about the matter, but speculation reached fever pitch when it was announced in late May that the actor had been named the latest brand ambassador of Omega watches.
The star marked the occasion with a trip to Omega’s manufacture in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. The brand, alongside Aston Martin and Bollinger, has long been associated with the iconic spy franchise, marking the most compelling evidence yet that Aaron has beat out other big names, including actors Idris Elba, Regé-Jean Page and Tom Hardy, who are reportedly in the running for a licence to kill.
“It’s flattering,” Aaron told Vanity Fair of the speculation in February 2023. “You just want to stay in your lane, stay grounded, stay around the people that you love and love you back, and stay in that world. Because the moment you start believing the s–t people say about you, you’ve lost your f–king mind … What’s real in my life are my kids and my home. Those are my rock and my centre.”
The star met his wife, director Sam Taylor-Johnson (née Taylor-Wood), 58, in 2008 during a casting call for Nowhere Boy.
She was 42 and he was 18 at the time. “I knew instantly with Sam that I’d found my soulmate,” Aaron told The Telegraph in 2019. “I knew instantly that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this person. I remember it very well, and a year to the day [after] I met her, I proposed. I knew I wanted a family with her, I knew I wanted kids, and a month later she was pregnant with our first child.”
After welcoming daughters Wylda in July 2010 and Romy in January 2012, the pair married on June 21, 2012. “What you gotta realise is that what most people were doing in their twenties, I was doing when I was 13,” he told Rolling Stone UK in March 2024, later adding, “You’re doing something too quickly for someone else? I don’t understand that. What speed are you supposed to enjoy life at? It’s bizarre to me.”
A month later, Sam, who also has two daughters from a previous marriage, sang a similar tune to The Guardian. “We’re a bit of an anomaly, but it’s that thing: after 14 years, you just think, surely by now it doesn’t really matter?” she asked in April 2024, adding of their whirlwind romance, “If I had been cynical for a second, it wouldn’t have worked. I’m quite instinctual. I’ve gone feet first into everything in my life … And I’m a great believer that the heart overrides everything. Love conquers all.”
When it comes to his work, Aaron says his personal life has helped inform his performances, including in 28 Years Later, in which he plays a father to 14-year-old actor Alfie Williams.
“Alfie is an extraordinary young man and an incredible actor and, bless him, he grew up pretty much – literally went from boy to young man in this short space of time, that sort of pinnacle age where you’re growing on set,” he said on Happy Sad Confused. “I felt very paternal over him … I play his father and it’s something I related to, being a father to teenage girls, so I felt really emotionally connected to this character in a way that was exciting.”
