Louis Partridge remembers exactly where he was when he discovered that he had been cast as the noble Viscount Tewkesbury, Marquess of Basilwether, in Netflix’s newest film Enola Holmes, out today (September 23). He was in the kitchen of his London home with his mom and dad and, upon discovering that he had gotten the role, promptly shot up the stairs in a celebratory victory lap. Then, he recalls, he packed up his things and took an English literature exam at school.
“I was auditioning for Enola Holmes in the run-up to my GSCEs in England, which are these big exams that you take, and I thought: I should be revising for this [exam], but I’ve got this audition in a week, and this is the most important thing I’ve done so far. I want to do this; the exams can wait,” the 17-year-old actor tells MTV News over Zoom from the very same home in London. “And then I went and did my exam, and I remember halfway through putting my pen down and just being spaced out, thinking: Wow, I got the part.”
Prior to the call, it had been a long period of waiting after his audition in Leicester Square. “I just remember waiting to hear so bad,” he says. “You can fall into a trap a bit where you want a part so bad and you don’t get it, so I try not to want [any role] too bad, but I couldn’t with this one.”
Landing the part, however, did come with a caveat: ”It was the worst exam I did of the whole of my GCSEs,” he reveals between laughs. “I did 10, and it was the worst one I got. I’ll take the Enola job over a better grade, that’s for sure.”
Directed by Harry Bradbeer, the coming-of-age film is based on the novels by Nancy Springer and sees its titular character, played by Millie Bobby Brown, embark on an adventure to London to track down her missing mother (Helena Bonham Carter) while dodging her brothers Sherlock (Henry Cavill) and Mycroft Holmes (Sam Claflin). Along the way, she encounters the posh Tewkesbury, played by Partridge, and the two form an unlikely alliance despite being complete opposites; Enola is unabashedly direct and quick on her feet, while Tewkesbury is more thoughtful and gentle. It’s Tewkesbury’s soft heart that initially drew Partridge to the character.