2006
This Is England
Appears in Shane Meadows’s film.
FLM.REDJACK
O’CONNELL
แจ็ก โอคอนเนลล์
From Derby to challenging screen roles
The actor known for Skins, Starred Up, ’71 and Unbroken.
Derby, England
The intensity of a character
Jack O’Connell is an English actor born in Derby on 1 August 1990. He began performing in school productions before working in British television and film.
Early screen work included Shane Meadows’s This Is England (2006). He later reached a young television audience as James Cook in Skins, a role he played from 2009.
In Starred Up (2013) he played a young prisoner moved into an adult prison; in ’71 (2014) he portrayed a British soldier separated from his unit in Belfast. The two independent films brought him significant attention.
Angelina Jolie cast him as Olympic runner and wartime prisoner Louis Zamperini in Unbroken (2014). The following year O’Connell received the BAFTA Rising Star Award, recognising his growing body of work.
His subsequent work has included stage productions and the film Sinners (2025), in which he plays Remmick. The credits linked on FLM.RED come from the site’s catalogue and do not represent his complete filmography.
Selected performances
2009
Skins
Begins playing James Cook.
2013
Starred Up
Plays a young prisoner.
2014
Unbroken / ’71
Stars in two wartime dramas.
Performance readings are FLM.RED editorial interpretation.
Films in FLM.RED
Titles in this collection; not a complete filmography.
Sources & image notes
- University of Derby — career and BAFTA
- London Theatre — screen and stage
- IMDb — birth and early credits
- Time Out — career interview
- Rotten Tomatoes — selected credits
Portrait illustration: FLM.RED.