Jack Huston, 30, is the grandson of the Hollywood film director John Huston and nephew to actors Anjelica and Danny Huston. He is best known for his role as Richard Harrow, a disfigured war veteran turned assassin, in the HBO Prohibition drama Boardwalk Empire. Huston was born in London in 1982, the son of Lady Margot Lavinia Cholmondeley and Walter Anthony (Tony) Huston. He decided he wanted to be an actor at the age of six after playing the lead role in a school production of Peter Pan. He began to get major film roles in his early 20s and has since appeared in 19 films and almost every episode of Boardwalk Empire's four seasons. He can currently be seen in Strangers on a Train by Craig Warner. Directed by Robert Allan Ackerman and produced by Barbara (James Bond) Broccoli, the play is being staged at the Gielgud theatre in London's West End. He also plays Jack Kerouac in the forthcoming Kill Your Darlings, a film about the beat poets.
Comedy
Veep
I think it's safe to say that I am obsessed with the work of Armando Iannucci, Steve Coogan and Chris Morris. I will happily watch anything these guys have done. I can go back and listen to The Day Today, or watch I'm Alan Partridge, my favourite comedy of all time, or Brass Eye, and they still feel inventive. These guys really did invent a new form of satire. Veep is Iannucci's attempt to do for American politics what The Thick of It and In the Loop did for British politics. It is brilliantly funny, a sort of antidote to The West Wing, or a satanic version of The West Wing. With Veep, rather than striving young idealists, you have cowardly egomaniacs and bunglers who are involved in endless arse-covering exercises. I am fairly certain Iannucci's version of politics is the more accurate.
Gig
Guns N' Roses
I love plain, old-fashioned rock'n'roll. I'm very old-fashioned like that. I have a good friend in New York who runs a few bars and clubs and he is always introducing me to new bands. But my favourites are the old ones. I went to see the Who recently, which was fantastic, but the band I truly love has to be the one I first got into, Guns N' Roses. Your first band is like your first love. Unforgettable. I went to see them the other day and had a brilliant time. Obviously it's only really Axl [the singer] who is left from the original line-up but the songs still sound great. It was a pretty special moment in my life because I was too young to have seen them the first time round. I first heard them when I was seven or eight and I loved them immediately. I remember every word to every song, every guitar break, every melody. I was a proper Guns N' Roses fan, but because of my age I never got to see them. So yeah, it was a very special night.
Theatre
Orphans by Lyle Kessler
I saw it in New York – it really is a must see. It's about two brothers, one with a mental disability, the other a violent guy who will do pretty much anything to look after his brother. They take a man hostage, the character played by Alec Baldwin, but the tables get turned in the sense that he takes the two brothers under his wing and gives them a second chance in life. Ben Foster and Tom Sturridge, who was rightly nominated for a Tony, are also in it. It is wonderful. It is beautifully written, beautifully acted and hugely inspirational.
Art
Eric Roux-Fontaine
My grandfather [John Huston] used to paint and collect art, and my mother is quite a keen collector. I have sort of followed in their footsteps. I went to see this show at the Axelle gallery in New York, which is a favourite haunt of mine. Fontaine works in lots of different media and his stuff has this wonderful, dreamlike quality to it. He is apparently inspired by travelling around Central and South America and eastern Europe, where he spent a lot of time with Romany communities. But he is also clearly very inspired by film directors like Wim Wenders, which I guess is in part why he appeals to me so much. I wanted to buy my girlfriend something for her birthday. Initially I had my eye on a smaller piece, but eventually I went for this much larger installation. She was absolutely delighted with it.
Television
The Wire, complete box set
Television is where it's at. The best writing in the world right now is the writing done for television. And the men and women who write for TV are the brightest and hardest-working in all of entertainment. There is so much that I could talk about, not least Breaking Bad, which really is one of the greatest dramas ever made. But I want to talk about The Wire, which to my shame I came to somewhat late, despite the fact that Michael K Williams [who plays shakedown artist Omar in The Wire] and I are both in Boardwalk together [Williams plays nightclub owner and gangster Chalky White]. The Wire is, from the off, breathtaking. Quite incredible drama. It is now easy to see just how influential it has been. It not only showed what was possible to do on TV, it made you realise that TV would never be the same again. It eschews the quick fix for intricate and beautiful character development. As others have said, it was as if television had reinvented the great Victorian novel. It is that ambitious, that penetrating, that intricate and immersive. What David Chase [The Sopranos], David Simon and Ed Burns [The Wire] and Vince Gilligan [Breaking Bad] have done is nothing short of revolutionising television and drama.
Travel
Turks and Caicos Islands
I don't get to go on holiday often because I am so busy. But the last place I truly fell in love with was the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean. I went there with my girlfriend and a friend of mine from New York. It really is extraordinary. I know a lot of places get called tropical paradises but this actually merits the title. It has long, white sandy beaches, palm trees, beautiful weather and is perfect in every respect. It is almost impossibly, indescribably romantic and really does rank as a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I would recommend it as a place for the most idyllic honeymoon – it is certainly a place I will never, ever forget.
