Being anointed the next big thing is a famously loaded experience, since it could be the springboard to either glory or despair. It’s on that precipice that we meet Callum Turner. He’s in the midst of an international press tour and chatting over Zoom from a luxury hotel suite, unsure of how many interviews he’s completed or, he jokes, even what day it is. There’s an unexpected bit of drama, though, when one of the potato chips he’s casually munching on gets lodged in his throat. “Sorry, that crisp just dried out my mouth,” he says, reaching fast for a bottle of water. “I don’t want to die eating a Pringle. What a way to go.”

The former Burberry model is fresh off his starring role in George Clooney’s holiday sleeper hit The Boys in the Boat and now promoting his acclaimed performance in Masters of the Air, the Apple TV+ series executive-produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman. There’s also a rumored romance with pop star Dua Lipa, which Turner sidesteps addressing— though, when pressed, he admits that his favorite Dua Lipa song is “Houdini.” Turner is clearly enjoying the ride thus far. “It just keeps getting better,” he says.

Turner’s first high-profile role was in the Fantastic Beasts franchise as Eddie Redmayne’s dashing brother, but he proved to have a knack for roguish types as well. In 2020’s Emma with Anya Taylor-Joy, he played the distinctly unsuitable suitor Frank Churchill. In Masters, he plays real-life World War II pilot Major John “Bucky” Egan with swashbuckling panache. “Egan had a real mischievousness about him, and so does Callum,” says Goetzman. The role required Turner to ditch his British accent for a Midwestern one, which he liked to maintain off-set. “The game was to make people think that I was American,” he says. Turner is a playful interview subject, doling out genuine sentiment and cheek in equal measure. “My favorite was drinking a lot of whiskey,” he says, eyes twinkling. “That helped a lot to get into the character because that’s what Egan was doing. He was dealing with his traumas.”

Turner was raised by a single mom in one of the only working-class areas of London’s posh Chelsea neighborhood. He worked in retail at the age of 15. “My mum got me a job in my rival [soccer] team’s club shop, so I had to wear the tracksuit of Fulham, and I am a Chelsea fan,” he says. After a brief stint playing semipro soccer, he left home to work as a model in Japan, Italy, and France. At 19, he turned to acting: “I told enough people I wanted to do it—that gave me the fear of not doing it,” he says. Turner started taking night classes and later hired an acting coach he’s been working with for 11 years now. “He’s a movie star,” says Goetzman. “He’s formidable in every way in what you want in an actor, and he’s a great guy to have around. Tom [Hanks] and I never hire for star power, we hire for the part. But over time, you get a sense of who they are and what their range might be in their life of acting, and he’s got no boundaries on him.”

The privilege of working with legends is not lost on Turner, who isn’t shy about asking for advice or observing people’s methods. “They feel a great sense of responsibility, not just for their jobs individually, but for the industry as a whole,” he says. “They welcome you into the community, and it’s a real pleasure being part of it.” Turner was recently cast in A Prayer for the Dying. If superstardom is in his future, he plans on following the Clooney method for staying grounded: “George’s friends are still his friends from when he was like 18 years old, and even though he’s famous, he’s the same guy. If I met George Clooney in 1990, he’d be the same bloke as the man I worked with 30 years later. I’m going to stay the same. Same as George and Tom and Gary. I’m so lucky that I have a wonderful group of friends and family. Even if I thought about getting too cocky, they’d let me know.” Just don’t ask Turner to row crew again. “What we did was so special. Those guys are mates for life,” he says of his Boys in the Boat costars. “Also, if I went and rowed on the Thames now, George Clooney wouldn’t be screaming at me with a megaphone to do it better, so it wouldn’t be as fun.”

GROOMING, PETER GRAY; TAILOR, OLGA DUDNIK; SET DESIGN, ALICE MARTINELLI. PRODUCED ON LOCATION BY VERY RARE PRODUCTIONS. LOCATION: JANE IVES STUDIO. FOR DETAILS, GO TO VF.COM/CREDITS.