Tom Francis Takes Center Stage
6 min readWhile preparing for Peter Berg’s film The Mosquito Bowl, Tom Francis had to journey to both the battlefield and the football field. The Brit is a massive fan of Berg’s Friday Night Lights, which gave him a starter-pack knowledge of American football, but he still had a few details to figure out before passing as a college football player-turned-soldier onscreen. With his co-star Ray Nicholson, he headed to the sidelines, watching the New York Giants train for a day. “There was just something about actually seeing these players play 10 feet away. It’s such an impressive sport,” Francis says. “To be a top American football player, you have to be so agile, so strong, so quick. You’re game smart. There are so many facets to it.”
In his first feature film, Francis stars as the late University of Wisconsin player Dave Schreiner. The Netflix adaptation, based upon Buzz Bissinger’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name, is set in the aftermath of the attacks on Pearl Harbor and follows four acclaimed college players—played by Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Nicholson, and Francis—who forgo their professional dreams to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. The film is bloody and at times a tough watch, but it viscerally conveys the brutality of war.
It’s a different beat for the 27-year-old, who grew up in England and studied musical theater at Arts Educational Schools in West London. He went on to do mostly stage work, performing on the West End in Hair and & Juliet, before his career-shifting role as Joe Gillis in Jamie Lloyd’s revival of Sunset Blvd. Francis played the role both on the West End and Broadway, and won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical along with a Tony Award nomination.
Now, with The Mosquito Bowl, Francis is moving into the next phase of his career. It is just one of his many credits in the near future: He just shot his first comedy—season 2 of Benito Skinner’s Overcompensating—and was recently cast in Apple TV’s limited series The Off Weeks, with Richard Gere. There have even been rumors swirling that he auditioned to play the next James Bond. “I think Denis Villeneuve is a great director, and I am so excited to see what he does with that franchise,” Francis says, masterfully dodging the question.
What matters to him most, he says, are the people he works with; he loves how he acquires a new batch of friends with each project. “The reason I love this career is because there are so many interesting people that you meet, and they have really cool perspectives on life,” Francis says. “It’s incredible to call it a job and be able to go and hang out with people on set who are so inspiring.”
Blazer, shirt, Dolce & Gabbana.
What was your physical training like for The Mosquito Bowl?
We landed in Australia and did a month of training. We did three or four hours of football training in the morning, and then we had lunch, and then we did three or four hours of military training in the afternoon. There are specific ways to carry rifles from that time period, and just getting used to moving around in military gear—it was invaluable. Also, it was a month for us to bond. This film’s all about brotherhood, and it was a month for us to be able to actually get to know each other.
How did you approach the role to ensure you were honoring Schreiner’s legacy?
The book has a lot about these men, and there is a lot written about them because they’d achieved a lot. It’s such a unique part of history. It basically was just reading as much as possible about them, trying to read some of [Schreiner’s letters], and trying to figure out who they were. I realized that Dave and I are both overthinkers about things. I think that was a big in for me.
This is a very heavy story. Was it emotionally hard to film?
No, because it’s all simulated. I don’t think there can be any comparisons between what we did for five months compared with what they went through. I think they’re very, very different things. Basically, we were just hanging out with our best friends every single day. It was a really enjoyable process getting to tell these stories. Pete creates a really good atmosphere on set, and so I feel like it filters down from him. Every single day was just a new learning experience for me. I felt like I was sponging everything up as much as possible.
You’ve mostly been a stage actor. This is your first film. How is acting for film and the stage different?
[With a show], you have to execute your own and the director’s vision together, and you have to achieve that every single night. I feel like with TV and film, you have more ability to be able to chop and change. They’re going to use the best take of whatever the vibe is. At the end of the day, it’s a director’s medium and an editor’s medium.
Acting onscreen was just such a brilliant learning experience for me, because I was acting with some of the best actors of my generation. They’ve all done films before. I was just watching them work and trying to just take every single thing that they did and emulate it through my body. Watching people like Bill, Ray, and Nick, they trust themselves implicitly, and they change it up. They’re so free and loose. They just let it happen. I think trying to figure out how I could do that was my biggest challenge.
You’re in the next season of Overcompensating. Tell me about being on set with Benito Skinner, Mary Beth Barone, and the whole team.
That was just the most fun I’ve ever had. I laughed constantly on that job. They are just the quickest, funniest, loving, generous, honest, just brilliant people. I’m really, really excited for that to come out. I’ve never done a TV comedy before, and it was just a bucket-list thing.
Blazer, shirt, trousers, Dolce & Gabbana.
You starred in Sunset Blvd. with Nicole Scherzinger. What was it like working with her?
Nicole is like a sister to me now. I mean, we share the same birthday, which is quite funny. I’ve been very lucky with some of the jobs that I’ve come away with some real friends for life. Watching her perform every night is one of the most incredible things ever. She does so much in her days. She can be absolutely exhausted backstage, and she just wants a hug. She’s like, “I don’t know where I’m going to get it from tonight,” and then she goes out onstage and does literally the most incredible performance you’ve ever seen. It was inspiring being with her and growing with her.
You walked outside the theater during the title song every night, which went viral on TikTok and Instagram. What did that feel like from your perspective?
That part of the show every single night is just such a blur. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Limitless with Bradley Cooper, but it’s kind of like that. It really is an out-of-body experience every time you go out there, because you just know that you have to hit these different points. There’s also just something meta about me walking along 44th Street, being like, “Sure, I came out here to make my name,” and outside, there’s a poster of my face.
Lead Image: Parka, blazer, pants, Dries Van Noten.
Hair by Stelios Chondros at Julian Watson Agency; makeup by Bea Sweet for Huda Beauty; manicure by Sabrina Gayle at The Arch Agency; set design by Paula Salinas; produced by Giorgio Tsintoukidis at The Curated.
A version of this story will appear in the November 2026 issue of ELLE.
