Ed Speleers on AllMovie

British actor Ed Speleers grew up in, Chichester, West Sussex, England, and experienced his first desire to perform at the tender age of seven, realized with a prominent role in a local production of Peter Pan. Speleers later attended Bury, England's Dorset House School and further capitalized on his theatrical interest with prominent roles in theatrical staples including A Streetcar Named Desire, Hamlet, Richard III, and The Crucible; at Dorset, his portrayals so captivated audiences that they earned considerable attention from studio personnel, who tested Speleers for A-list roles including Peter in Walden Media's Narnia series, and a young Hannibal Lecter in the Silence of the Lambs prequel Hannibal Rising (2007). Speleers lost both of the said parts but secured prominent billing and his first major big-screen assignment as the title character -- a young hero who sets out to take on formidable dragons -- in the 2006 fantasy Eragon. Unfortunately, the film received a disappointing critical and public reaction, but it did provide Speleers with an entrée to movie stardom.