Biography

Jude Hill (born January 1, 2010) is a Northern Irish actor. He is best known for his leading role in Kenneth Branagh's Belfast (2021), based on Branagh's childhood, for which he won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Young Actor. Hill made his feature film debut in Belfast. The film's story is told mostly through the eyes of Hill's character Buddy, described by Jeanette Catsoulis of the New York Times as "a bright, cheerful 9-year-old and a fictionalized version of Branagh himself". Hill was nine when he was chosen as the film's lead out of 300 young actors who auditioned. Hill was born in Gilford, a village in County Down, near Armagh, to Shauneen and Darryl. He has a younger sister and a younger brother. He attended St John's Primary School. From the age of four, she took drama classes at Shelley Lowry School in Portadown. Hill also played the lead role in the World War II-themed short film Rian, which premiered at CineMagic 2021. In the 2023 film "A Haunting in Venice", he worked with Branagh again.