Matthew Broome Is Racing Forward

If you’ve turned to Amazon Prime Video this summer, you may have noticed that the latest releases have been particularly…passionate. As part of its “Obsession Is in Session” seasonal slate, the streamer has gone all in on young adult stories, from hit new series like the college hockey romance Off Campus to the high school-set Legally Blonde prequel Elle. Leading the pack has been Your Fault: London, the latest in a run of English-language adaptations of a popular Spanish book and movie series, which quickly took the top spot in the world upon its release in June. Starring Asha Banks and The Buccaneers’s Matthew Broome, Your Fault finds a new twist on the age-old story of forbidden love, with Banks as Noah, an American teenager whose mother marries a rich business magnate and moves her from Florida to London in the original My Fault: London. Broome plays Nick, who will become, with much drama, both her boyfriend and her stepbrother. The two bond over a mutual love of drag racing and equally tempestuous pasts, and Your Fault finds them a year into their relationship, with Noah heading to Oxford and Nick helping to manage the family empire. There are the expected misunderstandings, potential romantic rivals, and plenty of action and romance, and Broome says that the enthralled audience for the films is a valuable reminder of the impact they are having. “It’s always nice to do it for the fans,” he says. “The fans are the people you really want to enjoy it. Everyone’s going to have their opinions, but you want to get it right for them as a second installment. By the looks of things, we’ve done it.”

Coming on the heels of Mercedes Ron’s beloved Culpables trilogy and the ensuing Spanish film adaptations, Broome spoke last year about the pressure of finding a balance between the original fans and the new English-language audience upon the release of My Fault: London. That movie was a major hit for Amazon, which proceeded to film both Your Fault: London and the finale, Our Fault: London (due out next year) in tandem. Having already proven their worth, Broome says they felt no less weight this time around, but it took a new form. “It was a very much a different feeling for the [first] film coming out because we really felt like we had to win them over and a lot of the build up to the release felt like, Please just trust us, you’re going to like it. Please, I promise you it’s different, I promise you it’ll be worth it,” he laughs. “Whereas this one, they’ve been waiting for it and wanting it, so that felt like a different pressure because it was like, Oh god, I hope we don’t give them the wrong thing. It feels like a relief.”

Returning to the character, Broome says he has found new nuances in himself as a performer and the role as both have matured over time. The impetuous and violent Nick of My Fault has become a young man torn in different directions by his various responsibilities, facing the burdens of living up to an overachieving father while trying to remain supportive of Noah and their friends. “Nick’s dealing with the pressure of balancing his personal life and his professional life, and I think that’s true for everyone really at some point, especially when you’re figuring out what you want to do in life,” the actor offers when asked about how he sees himself in Nick. “You’re in a quite ambitious state of mind and you have to prioritize things, make sacrifices. Sometimes it’s tough to always get that right and that’s something I relate to for sure.” Those nuances have helped deepen his understanding and performance of Nick in this latest movie, which is darker in tone than its predecessor. “On a second film, your character is starting from a different place,” he adds. “I, as Matt, am in a different place by the time I’m filming. I’ve grown, so I can use that in my preparation to play the character.”

Aside from delving into Ron’s original novels, told from a first-person perspective alternating between Nick and Noah that Broome says offered a helpful “stream of inner monologue,” Broome went to great lengths to embody Nick, from working with a personal trainer and learning the fight choreography to developing an interest in the cars he frequently races. “It’s always nice to have something tangible to be working with,” he says. “A lot of the time as an actor, you’re sat within your imagination, and it’s not like preparing for a football match and drilling, drilling, drilling, drilling. You can drill your lines and stuff, but sometimes it sits in this ethereal space, whereas having a new skill to learn or, for example, transforming your body is something that as an actor is like, Okay, I can hold on to this. Then physically changing yourself, it just changes you as a person to some degree.” Along with the external transformation, Broome says it is the mental and emotional work that truly inspires him. “I really enjoy finding that. It’s quite an introspective process preparing with a character,” he offers. “I think when you get a new character, your lens on the world changes, so you’re suddenly taking everything in in a different way and noticing things in life in such a different way. I love that about acting.”

Broome’s love for acting was first sparked in school as a teenager, which led to a fateful last-minute decision to switch his focus from computing to drama. “Pretty much since then, I just sort of became obsessed with it,” he says. “Movies started changing for me. The movies that I was gravitating towards were a lot more character-driven dramas like Fences with Denzel [Washington], Viola Davis. Hacksaw Ridge I remember watching and being really moved by at the time, from an acting perspective.” With the support of his parents, Broome attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, landing an agent in his final year. “Drama school’s a bubble and you don’t really see anything outside of it. It really intensely became my world and not in a bad way,” he laughs. “It just gave me a very healthy obsession. Well, I don’t know about healthy...”

After graduation, he was soon cast as Guy Thwarte in the Apple TV+ series The Buccaneers, based on an unfinished novel by Edith Wharton. Broome’s Guy is caught in a love triangle with his best friend Theo, played by Guy Remmers, and the American upstart Nan, played by Kristine Froseth, in the buzzy period drama, which is now in production for its third season. With these two outsized roles under his belt, the 25-year-old actor finds himself at a pivotal moment for his burgeoning career, a position cemented when he was awarded the International Golden Nymph for Most Promising Talent at the annual Monte-Carlo Television Festival earlier this summer. “I think I couldn’t quite believe that there are people who have noticed me enough to give me that—that still is crazy to me,” he says modestly of the award. “The Buccaneers has a fan base, My Fault has a fan base, and within that world it’s seen and loved and everything, but to then think within the industry someone’s noticing me is an amazing feeling. I’m so grateful and appreciative that it’s happened, especially at this point. It’s only fuel in the tank and reasons to keep going.”

As for his next moves, Broome says he is looking forward to expanding his range in new directions. After the swoony romance of the My Fault series and The Buccaneers, he is hoping to tackle something somewhat unexpected. “I’ve been so lucky with the projects I’ve done, and it’s been so wonderful exploring that genre,” he offers. “I love the cinema and the communal experience of watching. I want to keep working with people who are blowing my mind—something a bit grittier and high-octane, that Uncut Gems energy. I think that’s something I haven’t tapped into yet as an actor, something that’s chaotic.” In the meantime, he recognizes that he is still growing as both an artist and a person. “I’ve developed so much since season one, and it’s such an interesting process bringing my life experience into the work,” he says of returning to The Buccaneers this summer. “That’s a process I’m really enjoying at the moment.”

Your Fault: London is now streaming.