Asa Butterfield

Rising to fame as the earnest little boy in the Holocaust drama "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" (2006), English actor Asa Butterfield was lauded for his breakout performance as a German boy who befriends a youth trapped inside a concentration camp. From there, Butterfield went on to play the not-yet-evil Mordred on the BBC's young King Arthur adventure series "Merlin" (2008-09) and appeared alongside Anthony Hopkins in the remake of "The Wolfman" (2010).

He charmed audiences as Maggie Gyllenhaal's son in the family fantasy "Nanny McPhee Returns" (2010) and garnered the attention of director Martin Scorsese, who cast Butterfield as the lead in "Hugo" (2011), a 3-D family film about a little boy living in the walls of a 1930s train station, trying to unravel the parallel mysteries of his father's death and a magical machine. Though his bread and butter had always been all brood and drama, it was clear that young Butterfield came to the screen armed with deeply intuitive and well-rounded talent.

Asa Maxwell Thornton Butterfield was born on April 1, 1997 in London, England. He began performing early in his youth and acting professionally at age eight. First cast as a small character in the television drama "After Thomas" (2006), Butterfield made his feature film debut in "Son of Rambow" (2007) before appearing in an episode of the BBC One science fiction procedural series "Ashes to Ashes" (2008). He rose to celebrity in the Holocaust drama "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" (2006). One of the first to audition for the film, Butterfield was among the top choices for the lead role of Bruno from the beginning.

Casting directors wanted Bruno - a young boy whose father is named the commandant of a Nazi concentration camp - to be innocent, and Butterfield's lack of familiarity with some of the more terrifying Holocaust atrocities made him the preferred choice. In the film, Bruno meets a boy about his age who lives in the camp, and little by little, learns about what is going on behind the barbed wire. Based on the book by Irish novelist John Boyne, the film received low-grade reviews for its lack of authenticity and dramatic glaze. The British Independent Film Awards, however, nominated Butterfield as Most Promising Newcomer.

Butterfield returned to television on the BBC series "Merlin" (2008-09), which chronicles the adventures of a young King Arthur. He played a druid boy who is later revealed in the final episode to be the traitor, Mordred.

Next, Butterfield appeared in "The Wolfman" (2010) thriller with Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro before playing Maggie Gyllenhaal's son in "Nanny McPhee Returns" (2010), starring Gyllenhaal as a young mother left to run a farm by herself while her husband is off at war.

In 2011, Butterfield was cast as the lead in Martin Scorsese's 3-D fantasy film "Hugo," set in 1930s Paris and based on the best-selling Brian Selzniak book The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Also starring Sacha Baron Cohen and Jude Law, "Hugo" was the tale of a young orphan who lives inside the walls of a train station, trying to unravel the mystery of his father's death and his connection with a magical machine.

By Elizabeth Kiefer