Jonah Hauer-King has a line in House of Dynamite that is so offensive that his friends text him as soon as they see the movie. “Some people don’t write anything beyond that line,” he says.
Kathryn Bigelow’s thriller about the chaos within the halls of American power as an atomic bomb hurtles toward the United States – arriving on Netflix on Friday – stars the busy actor as a clean-cut military aide tasked with stalking the president (Idris Elba) while carrying the famous bag containing nuclear attack options and launch codes. In a later scene, where retribution is clearly the only option and the bag is truly open, he contrasts three scenarios of escalating apocalyptic developments with a chilling stillness, as if reading out the choices on a lunch menu.
“We actually call them rare, medium and well-done,” he told the rather distressed President. “Good job” is probably more like complete destruction of the planet.
This line, which now rings Hauerking’s phone calls regularly, is made all the more alarming by the fact that it’s not a work of fiction written by “House of Dynamite” screenwriter Noah Oppenheim.
“It’s very cruel, but it’s also true,” Hauer-King said from his home in north London. “We checked and it was anecdotal. It wasn’t just a hoax. It’s not the whole military saying that, but at least one individual mentioned it that way. That’s, yeah, really scary!”
Hauerking’s second-in-command is one of the minor characters in “House of Dynamite.” In addition to Idris as the president, the main cast includes Rebecca Ferguson, Greta Lee, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Jason Clarke, Tracy Letts, and an increasingly heated cast of White House officials, national security advisers, and military leaders. But while his appearance is relatively brief (he doesn’t appear until the final third of the film), his dazzling white military uniform, not to mention his straight-faced, emotionless, clinical demeanor, makes him the film’s most frightening element, as he holds the key to the end of the world.
He is effectively depicted as a handsome, clean-shaven, smooth-haired face of nuclear annihilation.
“The character I play has a very strange job,” says the 30-year-old. “They’re relatively young in their military careers, given such great responsibilities, trained within an inch of their lives. They have to stay alert and calm. And they’re just there, lurking in the background, obeying the president, waiting for the worst to happen, but obviously the hope is that they’re not actually called into action.”
Bigelow described his actor’s character as someone who “takes his job with the utmost seriousness and feels very honored to do it.” “My understanding is that this is a person on the rise and it would be considered a badge of honor.”
But Hauer-King admits this is a very difficult concept to understand, and the “good job” anecdote illustrates the mental strategy needed to cope with it all.
“Some people say that in a job where there’s a certain level of disconnection, you almost necessarily have to work… but for us, it’s quite shocking,” he says.
Hauer-King: “I know what you did last summer.”
matt kennedy
Bigelow’s films, especially those that delve into military protocol such as “House of Dynamite,” “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Hurt Locker,” “live and die on their authenticity,” says Hauer-King, who claims he had more historical and military advisers on set than any other department. Such a rich level of research proved particularly useful as he was only able to delve into his role in depth. “I couldn’t talk to exactly the person who did the work. I think it would be too confidential,” he says.
When Hauer-King first auditioned for House of Dynamite, his agent cited his non-American status as a “potential obstacle” and touted his dual citizenship (his mother is Debra Hauer, a California-born therapist and theater producer, and his father is Jeremy King, a British restaurateur who helped revive The Ivy). They didn’t need to worry. As the actor pointed out, and as he realized on the first day of filming, most of the cast were not American.
Between him and Elba, he has virtually the ultimate authority over America’s nuclear arsenal and the fate of humanity, but the fact that they are both Londoners has not gone unnoticed.
“We laughed about two Arsenal fans riding around on the presidential beast and making such monumental choices about the US military,” he recalls.
A House of Dynamite is the third of three recent releases starring Hauer-King, who has steadily stepped up the gears in recent years.
The actor, who burst onto the big screen by winning the heart of Harry Bailey in The Little Mermaid and instantly playing a Disney prince, is venturing into dark waters as the lead in The Tattooist of Auschwitz, a TV drama about the devastating 2024 Holocaust. But 2025 solidly accelerated his move from up-and-coming talent to popular star with three movies and three wildly different performances.
Earlier this summer, he was part of the main cast playing a mostly bloody victim (a role he says was recommended to him by his “best friend” Maya Hawke) in Jennifer Katin Robinson’s silly and decidedly self-conscious slasher reboot/sequel hybrid for Columbia Pictures, I Know What You Did Last Summer. Then came the romantic comedy The Threesome, directed by Chad Hartigan, in which she played a man who, in a one-off trois (co-starring Zoey Deutch and Ruby Crews), causes a slightly more complicated second pregnancy (and a comically awkward hospital scene). And now he’s about to blow the world to pieces for Bigelow.
Coincidentally, the three films have one connecting element. Hauer-King plays an American in each film. “It just happened to happen,” he insists. “It wasn’t a choice.” But he worked hard to perfect three different accents (for “The Threesome,” he says, he styled a then-little-known singer named Benson Boone).
Hauer King in “Threesome”
Kai caddy
Next, he plays another American, this time the real-life Mark Vonnegut, Kurt’s son, in Eden Express, based on his 1975 memoir about a man who flees Nixon’s America and establishes a commune in British Columbia. Hauer-King said the film was shot in Powell River, “the actual setting of the story.” And then there’s “The Face of Horror,” the next feature from Anna Biller, best known for the 2016 cult and bizarre retro horror film “The Love Witch.” “It’s essentially horror. It’s gory and it’s about ghosts,” he says. “But what’s interesting about it is it’s definitely the same style, and it’s also an aesthetic homage to the Technicolor movies of the ’40s and ’50s.”
“The Face of Horror” provides Hauer King with a rare break from his American habits. “I’m playing a medieval knight, so it’s like a heightened RP (received pronunciation). Everything is very appropriate and over the top.”
Things could easily go Hauerking’s way as his resume grows and he moves up the ranks quickly as demand increases. But the actor recently said he received a very welcome lesson in humility and the “house of dynamite” from the president himself while driving around in the presidential limousine.
“It was a challenging scene. There was a lot going on, especially for Idris, because he was talking to me and doing a phone call with a lot of lines, even though they were pre-recorded. And we’re also on this haphazard highway,” he recalls. “And after the first take, he looked at me and said, ‘That was really hard.’ It was really nice to make him realize that this is hard, even for someone like him. And not everyone reacts like that.”
