Joshua Mathias O'Connor (born 20 May 1990) is an English actor. From 2016 to 2019, he had a major role portraying Larry Durrell in ITV's The Durrells. He had his breakthrough playing the lead role of a gay sheep farmer in Francis Lee's romantic drama God's Own Country (2017), for which he won the BIFA Award for Best Actor.
O'Connor gained recognition for his portrayal of Charles, Prince of Wales, in the Netflix drama series The Crown (2019–2020), winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for the role. He has since starred in the period drama Emma (2020), Italian adventure La chimera (2023), heated romance Challengers (2024), heist drama The Mastermind (2025), tragic romance The History Of Sound, murder mystery Wake Up Dead Man (2025), and science fiction thriller Disclosure Day (2026).
O'Connor was born to John, a teacher, and Emily, a midwife. He grew up in Newbury until he was five, when his family moved to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, where he was brought up. He is the middle son in a family of three boys. He grew up Catholic.
O'Connor's grandfather was sculptor John Bunting, his grandmother was a ceramicist, and his maternal aunt is British writer and commentator Madeleine Bunting. His ancestry is Irish, English, Scottish and, through his matrilineal great-grandmother, Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewish.
He wanted to be a professional artist when he was younger, but he did not think he was good enough, so he switched to rugby and then discovered acting. His first major role was at age seven as the scarecrow in a school production of The Wizard of Oz, followed by a minor role in a school production of Bugsy Malone. O'Connor went to a private co-ed school, St Edward's School, Cheltenham, during the week and spent a lot of time on weekends at the Axiom, a local arts centre. He grew up in a Labour-supporting household, but he traces his political awakening to the arts centre's closure when he was eleven, feeling the deep sense of loss in the community. He is proud to have grown up outside London, in a town with a strong tradition of regional theatre.
The production of Bugsy Malone at St Edward's also featured his classmate Tahliah Barnett, who later became a singer under the stage name FKA Twigs. O'Connor has cited his school's drama programme as having helped him live with his dyslexia for many years, especially when preparing for his GCSEs. He then trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, from which he graduated in 2011, and then moved to London. During his third year of theatre school, he signed with an agent.
2012–2018: Early work and breakthrough
In 2012, O'Connor first appeared on television as Charlie Stephenson in Lewis and on film as a zombie in The Eschatrilogy: Book of the Dead. In 2013, he appeared in Doctor Who as Piotr, in The Magnificent Eleven as Andy, in Law & Order: UK as Rob Fellows, in The Wiper Times as Dodd and in London Irish as James.
On stage in 2013, he was cast as Ben Fowles in his first professional play, Farragut North by Beau Willimon at the Southwark Playhouse. The Independent remarked: "O’Connor delivers a comic gem of a performance." This led to a role as young returning soldier Hugh in Peter Gill's 2014 play Versailles at the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden, London.
In the same year, he played Max in Hide and Seek, James in Peaky Blinders and PC Bobby Grace in Ripper Street. After a year and a half of auditioning, he landed the role of a Bullingdon toff named Ed in The Riot Club (2014), Lone Scherfig's adaptation of Laura Wade's play Posh, appearing alongside up-and-coming British actors Sam Claflin, Douglas Booth, Max Irons, Freddie Fox, Ben Schnetzer and Olly Alexander.
In 2015, he played Leo Beresford in Father Brown, a ballroom palace guard in Cinderella and Charlie in the short film Holding on for a Good Time. He starred opposite his then-girlfriend Hannah Murray in Bridgend, Jeppe Rønde's dark, fictional portrayal of a real town in Wales with an alarmingly high teen suicide rate. O'Connor played Rich in the biographical drama film The Program about the cyclist Lance Armstrong, directed by Stephen Frears.
He also played in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday as Rowland Lacy and Tom Morton-Smith's Oppenheimer as Luis Alvarez at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. The following year, he took over the role of Donaghy in Florence Foster Jenkins, starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, and starred as Donald in the short film Best Man. From 2016 to 2019, he played the role of Lawrence "Larry" Durrell in the ITV comedy-drama The Durrells.
In 2017, he starred as the young sheep farmer Johnny Saxby in the British drama film God's Own Country directed by Francis Lee. In preparation for his role, he worked with a Yorkshire farmer, labouring in the fields in between takes to learn the proper techniques and get the right physicality, and eventually birthed over 150 lambs. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim. For his performance, he received multiple recognitions including the British Independent Film Award for Best Actor and the Empire Award for Best Male Newcomer, and was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award.
In 2018, O'Connor starred as Peter in the segment The Colour of His Hair in Boys on film 18: Heroes, and starred alongside Laia Costa in Harry Wootliff's directorial debut Only You, which premiered in competition at the London Film Festival. For his performance, he received his second British Independent Film Award for Best Actor. In 2019, he portrayed Marius Pontmercy in the British television adaptation of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. He also starred as Jamie in Hope Gap, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, earning the Best Actor award at the Barcelona-Sant Jordi International Film Festival. It had a limited release in theaters, before dropping digitally in May 2020.
2019–present: Critical acclaim
In the same year, O'Connor began portraying Charles, Prince of Wales, in Season 3 of the Netflix historical drama The Crown (2019), starring alongside Olivia Colman, Tobias Menzies and Helena Bonham Carter. In 2020, he was nominated for a British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role, while the cast won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. He revealed that the role did not initially interest him and that he had to be persuaded to audition. Creator Peter Morgan asked him to read a scene in which Charles compares himself to a character in Saul Bellow's 1944 novel Dangling Man, in which the character waits to be drafted into war because the war will give his life meaning. It was the "aimlessness and purposelessness of Charles's life as heir to the throne" that ultimately sparked O'Connor's interest in the character.
He reprised the role for Season 4 of The Crown, and admitted that his character is "horrible" in that season. Still, he said he understood the source of Charles' discontent, saying that it all boils down to the fact that Charles has spent his entire life being overlooked. O'Connor's performance received universal acclaim and earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama, and the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series, in addition to nominations for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series. The cast also won its second Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. He described the culmination of his journey as Prince Charles as "the experience of a lifetime."
O'Connor also played Mr. Elton in the period comedy-drama film Emma based on Jane Austen's 1815 novel of the same name. In 2021, he portrayed Romeo in the Royal National Theatre's television film adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. He also played Paul Sheringham in Mothering Sunday, which explores class divides and postwar survivor's guilt in 1924, starring alongside Olivia Colman and Colin Firth. In the same year, it was announced that he would be working with Francis Lee again on a horror film with themes of "class and queerness". O'Connor was seen in the drama film Lee, starring Kate Winslet, which is set during World War II and directed by Ellen Kuras. That film premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. O'Connor also starred opposite Zendaya and Mike Faist in Challengers, directed by Luca Guadagnino. Initially due to premiere at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, the film was postponed and released in 2024, due to the 2023 writers' and actors' strike.