For an actor starring in one of the most popular children’s film franchises of all time, Harry Trevaldwyn had an unconventional path to the big screen (that’s truh-vole-dwin, don’t you know).

Over a few years, Trevaldwyn has gone from producing online comedy sketches at home to earning roles in the Timothée Chalamet-starring film The King and Disney+’s Star Wars: The Acolyte. Interestingly, the aforementioned sketches were a creative outlet for him to make something on his own terms, without anyone’s permission. Behind the humour was someone honing his craft and testing his range. 

Speaking from his flat in London—where he wouldn’t host a themed dinner unless it were “old-school leather and lace”—Harry shares his experiences with a calm transparency. It’s easy to understand how the actor maintains a careful balance between the written word and the wit of comedy.

In his latest film, Harry takes on the role of Tuffnut Thorston in the live-action version of How to Train Your Dragon, which is in cinemas now. A role in Netflix’s My Oxford Year is soon to follow, and the sequel to his debut novel, The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King (perfect for Heartstopper fans), is in the works, Harry is clearly a creative brimming with excitement. The future is his to soar into.

In conversation with 1883 Magazine, Harry Trevaldwyn discusses How To Train Your Dragon, the importance of messiness, how precious new connections can be, and more.

How to Train Your Dragon is one of the most popular children’s film franchises, probably of all time. What can you tell us about the casting process and the journey of being part of this world? 

The casting process was quite a long one, there were a couple of stages of it—it started with just a regular self-tape. Obviously, I’d watched the film and was a fan of the film, and it was one of those ones that came in but because it was so big, you kind of just do it and then don’t really think about it. 

But then we had a recall, and we did chemistry reads. For me it was a really lovely one because I knew that I was auditioning to play twins. A big part of it was thinking, ‘Ooh, who’s my twin gonna be?’ 

We went through different variations and combos of the gang, and then I auditioned with Bronwyn [Bronwyn James, Ruffnut] and was just immediately in love with her. But we looked nothing alike! 

Part of the audition was we did improve, and Bronwyn and I did this whole bit of us as twins, thinking we looked identical even though we looked nothing apart. I was so happy when both of us got cast, it was very lovely. 

Your career started with comedy and your online sketches, and Tuffnut is one of the more comedic characters in the group. How did you explore his humour and have you put some of your own into the character? 

It was an interesting one because Tuffnut is actually so different to my kind of humour. He’s super, super confident, desperate to be this alpha male winning every competition, and so it was interesting. 

It was really fun because obviously you’re in this totally different world, and it already felt like such a good world that’s then been elevated so much. I think what was really lovely is that Dean [Dean DeBlois, director] really loved the dynamic that we had as a group, and so he’d always allow us to play around and do some improv takes. 

We did lots of rehearsals as well, so we got to figure out the character and figure out the dynamics. There was a lot of room to play around which felt wild, because it was the biggest scale project that I’ve ever done. Being able to mess around and make mistakes and figure things out on a set of that scale felt very special. 

It sounds amazing. What did you enjoy the most? 

It was one of those things where the world that was created was so spectacular. So walking onto those sets, like when we first went to the Great Hall or into the training area, the level of detail that was on those sets was just wild. 

I remember Julian [Julian Dennison, Fishlegs] reminded us all this doesn’t happen every day, and to look at the level of detail we were living in. The detail of the tapestries and everything – so much love and care has gone into it, and I think it felt like a very special thing to go onto a film set that so many people at the top of their game had put so much fabulous work into. 

Just living it, I never took that for granted, that I’m here in a gorgeous ginger wig. Also—the wig! My camera roll during that time is all just pictures of me and the wig. 

Your original comedy sketches online are what you first became known for. What inspired you to create those in the first place? 

I think it was basically a way of getting some agency back. I knew I wanted to do acting and writing, but I didn’t know how to do it professionally. I hadn’t gone to drama school. I started doing the videos just before lockdown, and I just really enjoyed doing them and also getting better at them and editing them. 

It was a creative outlet and being able to do the thing that I loved without someone telling me I could because I’d got a part. That felt really important at the time, when I was so clueless as to how to do it as a job full time. 

It was a creative outlet to express yourself and create something for fun, not because someone had given you a role or told you what to do?

Totally. And it was something I could get better at quickly because there was such an immediate response and feedback of what people liked, and I think that informed my writing a lot, as well as comedy in general – and it let me practice my eye makeup as well. So it all worked out.

How did you get into the arts – what path did you take? 

I just always loved it. We did a school production of The BFG and I was playing one of the evil giants and I just loved it so much. I studied English at university in Bristol, but they had a really brilliant drama department and drama societies and they put on amazing plays. 

I was really lucky that I managed to go there and I think a big part of it was, I had lots of friends who were all looking for the same thing and looking to make things and make people laugh. It was really nice having that community, all trying to figure it out at the same time and giving each other advice. 

I didn’t go the most traditional route, but I think it was a route that, in hindsight, worked best for me—it meant I could hone the bits of myself as a performer I wanted to show. 

Netflix’s The Bubble was one of your first big projects you took on. What was the experience like? 

I remember for so much of it just being terrified that it was gonna go away! I wish in hindsight I could have gone back and just enjoyed it, because I had the best time. It was fantastic, Judd [Judd Apatow, director] championed me so much and was so supportive.

It was also such an amazing learning experience, watching these comedians and actors that I’d watched and loved for so long, seeing them up close and how they did everything. I wish I had a GoPro on me and watched it back to see, like how did Fred Armisen do that? 

What were your biggest takeaways from being in that project? 

I think a big takeaway was the messiness that happens before the final product is really important. With everyone trying things out, some things work, and some things don’t. and I think being able to have that mindset that you can do something and it’s not right, but it will get you closer to what you want it to be, I think was really important. 

I also think with The Bubble it felt like such an ensemble piece with people teeing other people up to say funny things. I’ve been really lucky that I think a lot of my jobs have been big ensemble pieces, and it’s the same in How to Train Your Dragon—there’s a group of us and when everyone’s helping each other, it just makes it so much more fun because it feels like when you were rehearsing plays at uni. Not just because Pedro Pascal is there. 

How have projects like The Bubble, Ten Percent and Channel 4’s Billi – which you wrote and starred in – changed your life? 

Oh they’ve totally changed my life! I always feel so lucky that I’m doing what I do and able to do it full time. I think another really lovely thing about the job is that you get to meet new people all the time, and some of those people are precious to you and you take them into your real life, and they become proper friends. 

It’s changed my life totally, and it’s something I always dreamed of doing. It feels very strange that I’m actually doing it. 

I can imagine, and for you it’s been a lot of changes in only a handful of years. What would you say are some of the highlights? 

I think the highlights are genuinely making new friends in adult life. I think it’s such a lucky thing because you do just meet so many brilliant, brilliant people. And I think also being able to do both writing and acting alongside each other has been a really special thing. 

Doing both has made me love the other one more, being able to play them off each other is really special and nice. 

You recently released your debut novel, The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King. What did you enjoy most about writing a novel? It must have been nice to slip into writing again after studying English. 

It was, but it did made me realise that throughout school, university and writing a book, I still am not confident with what a semicolon is. But that’s fine, and that’s what gorgeous editors are there for. 

It was nice because anyone who works in TV will tell you how long everything takes, there’s always so many meetings and drafts and versions, and in a lovely way, it takes so many people to make it. What I really enjoyed about it, in the same way I enjoyed making my videos, is that I could write it and it existed in its entirety by itself. I used to love writing short stories and creative writing so it was really nice going back to that. And I was also just so proud that I’d written it. 

As you should be! 

Thank you very much! Now I’m literally using my book to prop up my laptop, so swings and roundabouts! 

But, yeah, I think especially when you hold the book… that’s a really special thing. And for me, the book was also very cathartic to write. It was writing a version of childhood that I wish I’d had. The lead character Patch is so proud of his identity and so proud of his queerness—that’s never even a question in the book. It’s about him falling in love dreadfully. But the fact he had so much confidence in who he was, it was so interesting being like, gosh, what must that have been like? 

So that was also quite special, and I’m in the editing process of the second one as we speak.

That must be so exciting! How do you see yourself in Patch? 

Patch is very different to who I actually am, but it’s like exploring what the bravest version of myself would be like when I was younger, if the school environment or the world in general had been a more supportive place. I really hope I’m slightly less bulldozer than him. 

Writing a novel is such a mammoth project. What was the biggest challenge? 

Obviously, there are days where you’re just like, ‘I cannot write a single word, and these adjectives don’t make sense’, but I think the tricky part was that I’d held the character and held the story in my head and in my laptop for so long. And so actually, releasing him into the world, I got weirdly quite protective of him. And once it’s out in the world, you’ve got your version of him, but someone else reading it might have a totally different version. 

But its all been really lovely feedback, and also speaking to people and hearing their experience of the book, and all ages and genders discovering it has been really amazing. 

I think that’s something to be really proud of. 

Yeah, I am proud of it, I really am. It’s also really nice as I’m doing the second book, getting nice messages about the first book, so it gives me a push to carry on. 

How would you describe the relationship between acting, writing and comedy across all your projects? 

I think they all do inform each other. It’s made me realise I need to have something I like that I don’t turn into a job—so maybe painting, because I definitely won’t be able to turn that into a job. 

I think it’s really helpful, especially when writing scripts or something like that, because I want to write something that when it gets sent to an actor, they’re really excited about the part. I think they inform each other really nicely and I hope each one makes me better at the other one. 

We mentioned your life has changed in quite a short space of time. What other things do you hope to have achieved in another three or four years? 

I think there’s lots of things that I’ve got in the works at the moment that if they play out, it will be like a very pinch-me moment. I’ve always known the kind of things that I like and enjoy doing, and I think doing more of this stuff would be great. 

As a writer and an actor, I’m hoping that I’m getting better at advocating for myself. Every so often, I feel like a ‘I can’t believe I’ve got this, thank you so much’. But then I also think I’m trying to get my point across, especially with writing. I’ve been so fortunate that I’ve always worked with amazing teams and producers, and the people that I’ve worked with have really helped me do that. But to find my voice more in those meeting rooms and in those bigger meetings, I think that’s something I want to continue to get better at because I’m so terrible at confrontation. 

I just want to get better and better and try new things and challenge myself as a writer, and as an actor. 

How to Train Your Dragon has been green-lit for a second one, so I’m excited to go and get back on that dragon. 

How To Train Your Dragon is out now.

Follow Harry Trevaldwyn @harrytrevaldwyn

Interview Claudia Bradley

Photography David Reiss

Styling Michael Miller at Stella Creative Artists

Grooming Charlie Cullen

Styling Assistant Censi Lucena Moyano