How Callum Turner went from down and out to Dua Lipa’s love curiosity

Gazing out the window of his fourth-floor bed room, over the red-brick London council property the place he grew up, Callum Turner dreamed of one thing extra. 

At first he wished to be a soldier; later he settled his sights on soccer, longing to play for his beloved Chelsea, whose residence floor was just some miles away.

His mom, Rosemary, a nightclub promoter who introduced Callum up single-handedly, couldn’t afford match tickets, so he’d keep in on Saturday afternoons, throw open the home windows and hearken to the roars echoing throughout the skyline.

They known as his neighbourhood ‘World’s End’, a shabby stretch of the well-known King’s Road in Chelsea which was a Victorian slum.

Aged 17, Callum’s chiselled attractiveness caught the eye of a mannequin scout. It appeared a straightforward escape – however it wasn’t to be.

By his early 20s, he was again on the property together with his mum, working in a basement store and smoking hashish to alleviate the boredom.

‘I was like a real addict,’ he later admitted. ‘I definitely missed four years of my life.’

Fast-forward a decade and Callum Turner, now 33, has critically cleaned up his act.

Despite no formal drama coaching on his CV, he’s lastly hit the large time.

He’s starring in Masters Of The Air, the brand new, hotly anticipated Apple TV collection with Austin Butler and Barry Keoghan, which boasts Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks as government producers.

You may also see him lighting up the silver display screen in The Boys On The Boat, directed by George Clooney, through which he performs a broke, decided younger sportsman who grows up with no father determine – a storyline which intently mirrors Callum’s personal.

He’s making such waves that he’s even been touted as the following James Bond (these sky-high cheekbones will surely turn out to be useful).

And it’s not simply his performing profession which has thrust Callum into the highlight.

He hit the headlines this month after confirming his romance with singer (and fellow Londoner) Dua Lipa, 28, with the pair noticed kissing on a balcony at a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles.

It’s a great distance from World’s End, that’s for positive. But those that know Callum say he hasn’t misplaced contact together with his humble roots – and is near his mom, the strong-willed lady behind his success.

‘Rose raised Callum as a single mum,’ explains Keanan Duffty, a dressmaker and musician who has recognized the household for 40 years, talking solely to the Mail this week.

‘[She] was both easy-going but level-headed with Callum as a kid. I know she worked hard to keep him away from any bad influences and instilled a strong work ethic.

‘That’s all fairly evident: Callum hasn’t modified a lot in that he stays all the way down to earth and easy-going himself. He’s a beautiful lad. Rose gave Callum a fantastic reward by retaining his ft on the bottom.’

Rose, now 66, was a ‘New Romantic’, a part of the Eighties subculture which celebrated flamboyant vogue and an alternate, hippy life-style.

World’s End was the beating coronary heart of the motion, frequented by creatives together with Vivienne Westwood, who opened her iconic boutique, Sex, right here, and musicians resembling Joe Strummer and Mick Jagger.

It was right here, too, that Rose started her profession as a promoter on the legendary Blitz Club in Covent Garden.

‘I used to get in trouble for what I wore in the Eighties. People would throw things and spit at me,’ she defined in 2010, in a chunk for The Face journal about ‘cross-generational clubbing’.

‘But I feel very lucky to be born in a time when there was so much originality. When I went out with pink hair in Kensington High Street, it stopped traffic.’

Keanan, 59, who now lives in New York together with his spouse, met Rose in 1982 when she was working PX, a New Romantic store in Covent Garden, and supplied him a Saturday job.

At that point Rose was additionally the door individual at Camden Palace [now called Koko], what he describes as ‘the number one nightspot for London’s would-be elites, pop stars and wannabes.

‘Rose’s pure expertise for choosing the right combination of individuals and realizing all of the “faces” was evident.

‘Though she was an arbiter of “who’s who” in clubland, she was all the time all the way down to earth and humble.

‘She would kindly let me into the club for free, so I could mingle with various members of Spandau Ballet, Boy George, milliner Stephen Jones… We [even] saw one of Madonna’s first UK performances there.’

It was into this vibrant world that Callum was born in February 1990.

Rose gave him the center title ‘Robilliard’ after her good friend, poet David Robilliard, who tragically died with HIV in 1988.

Little is thought about Callum’s father, who’s believed to be an Australian who lives there with Callum’s half-brother and half-sister.

He has described his relationship together with his dad as ‘loose’.

Money was tight, with Rose working all hours to help her son. Nevertheless, he recollects a cheerful childhood: ‘My mum allowed a community of people around me and wasn’t protecting of her love for me,’ he mentioned in a 2020 interview. ‘It was almost like a tribe. [My] father figures were a lot of different gay guys, basically.’

Steve Strange, the late singer and co-founder of the Blitz Club, was Callum’s godfather, dwelling with them on-and-off.

‘Rose’s huge community of pals from the Eighties membership scene, and the bohemian personalities that she attracts, alongside together with her openness and allure, performed a powerful function in shaping Callum’s values and worldview,’ says Keanan.

He quickly entered the world his mom beloved, honing his DJ expertise at night time whereas his pals have been learning for his or her GCSEs.

Despite her laid-back strategy, he says that rising up, Rose was ‘the strictest mum on the estate’, imposing a 10pm curfew on college nights.

At college, he was gawky – 6ft by age 13 – and performed up in school. ‘I was in all the lowest sets,’ he mentioned, ‘but not because I couldn’t do it – as a result of I didn’t wish to do it.’

Football was his ardour; he give up schooling at 16 to play semi-professionally.

It went properly, at first, however he quickly reached the restrict of his expertise. ‘I was incredibly dedicated,’ he admits in a current interview. ‘I just wasn’t a footballer.’

It was a household good friend, a stylist who had an in with a mannequin company, who took Callum in his subsequent route.

The subsequent few years have been a crash course in maturity, dwelling on a shoestring for a interval in Tokyo the place, in a bid to drop a few pounds, he would eat simply six items of tuna for lunch.

Keanan recollects Rose and Callum visiting him in New York round this time, the place they attended one in every of his vogue occasions.

He remembers his ‘polite and unpretentious charm’ and says a profession within the highlight ‘seemed so natural’ for the teen.

Modelling went properly for Callum – he labored for Comme des Garçons, Reebok and Next, and fronted two Burberry campaigns – however he hadn’t discovered his calling.

‘I remember the feeling of frustration, especially when I was 17, 18, 19, even 20,’ he mentioned in a 2017 journal interview. ‘I had no idea who I was and what I wanted.’

Back in London, dwelling together with his mum, he began auditioning for roles on his lunchbreaks – low-budget movies at first; later mainstream TV.

In an interview this week, he says he labored three jobs simply to remain afloat. ‘I think the thing about being working class and having no money is that you actually have to have another job,’ he explains.

The pair even labored for a time collectively as promoters. In The Face journal interview in 2010, Callum, then 20, describes Rose as ‘my best friend’.

‘Mum and I argue all the time… but then we just smile at each other and we’re advantageous.’

For her half, Rose mentioned: ‘As a mother, you come to the stage where you can give advice and hope that those you love are going to take it.

‘But in no shape or form do I want to tell Callum how to live his life, because I’ve lived mine, I’ve made my very own errors, and he’s entitled to stay his life too.’

To calm down, the pair indulged their shared love of movies, staying up all night time to look at childhood classics like Free Willy. ‘That was our thing,’ Callum recollects.

But regardless of her help, it was round this time he turned to weed, a behavior he didn’t handle to kick till he was 26.

‘I was dealing with a depression or a frustration, and not having the understanding or the tools to deal with how I felt, so I self-medicated for too long,’ he has admitted. ‘I was acting, doing films, and smoking weed every day.’

Eventually clear, he received his first massive break within the 2012 ITV collection Leaving, taking part in a younger man in a relationship with an older, married lady (Helen McCrory), and shortly afterwards starred in Queen And Country, director John Boorman’s 2014 sequel to Oscar-nominated movie Hope And Glory.

It was on set that Callum met The Crown actress Vanessa Kirby, 35.

The couple have been very personal – although Rose proudly shared an image of Vanessa on her Facebook web page – and didn’t go public with their relationship till 2017, when she was linked with Tom Cruise. They finally break up two years later.

Meanwhile, his profession was going from energy to energy.

From 2014 E4 collection Glue to 2016 romantic comedy Tramps, he then gained the function of Theseus Scamander (brother to Newt, performed by Eddie Redmayne) within the Harry Potter spin-off movies, Fantastic Beasts, in 2018 and 2022.

After his Bafta nomination for BBC One mini-series The Capture, through which he performed Lance Corporal Shaun Emery, he earned his interval drama stripes, taking part in Frank Churchill within the 2020 movie Emma, requiring the boy from the council property needed to have ‘a week of etiquette lessons’.

Now surrounded by the performing elite, lots of them from upper-class upbringings, certainly there’s a threat Callum may really feel considerably excluded from the clique?

But he insists he doesn’t – but. ‘I’ve received pals who’ve received a great deal of cash and are available from cash, they usually don’t care, I don’t care.

‘Generally, people are nice… if someone comes with a [negative] energy, I’m not going to reciprocate.’

That mentioned, reviews have speculated the actor has earned as much as £2.3million to this point.

He tries ‘not to play with fame that much, so it doesn’t then play with me’, including: ‘I don’t go to occasions and I don’t have Instagram. I’ve a fairly low-key life and I take pleasure in that.’

Whenever he can, he returns to World’s End, the place he and mates from again within the day nonetheless kick a soccer across the property.

Rose, who now works as a therapist, is happy with her ‘gorgeous’ boy and what a hit he’s product of himself.

As for these Bond rumours? Odds are at present 16/1 for the actor to tackle the function.

He blames his mum for the hypothesis, saying lately: ‘She just puts that out there. So when my odds get higher, it’s all her placing the cash on.’

Family good friend Keanan says something is feasible. ‘In whatever he does, Callum always shines.’