"Hopefully it's doing something positive": My Oxford Year's Corey Mylchreest on portraying vulnerable men

Cosmopolitan

6 days ago

The entire internet fell in love with Corey Mylchreest in 2023 when he starred as the young King George in Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. Fast-forward two years, and the 27-year-old actor is stepping into another heartthrob role - this time as charming professor Jamie Davenport in Netflix's My Oxford Year, opposite singer and actress Sofia Carson.
"I did really feel like I knew what to do with Jamie," Corey says when we catch up over Zoom.
"This doesn't always happen. I remember Benny Safdie saying that sometimes you have a character in you already that you can just walk onto set and it's there. I'm not saying that that's the case with me and Jamie, I just think that it wasn't so much of a leap. I could understand him quite quickly."
Based on Julia Whelan's novel of the same title, My Oxford Year follows ambitious student Anna De La Vega as she moves to the UK for a year at university - only to unexpectedly fall for her endearing and handsome professor, Jamie, who is secretly battling terminal cancer.
"I spoke to some really generous, kind and very open people, some of whom have experienced something like what Jamie's experiencing, some of whom have experienced a family member or a friend going through a journey similar to Jamie's right up until the end," Mylchreest tells me.
"I'm so thankful. It's a really brave thing to do to speak to a stranger about something that's so personal. Some of those conversations were so pivotal and key in what I ended up doing and I wouldn't have been able to do the same thing that I did without that. It just informed everything."
It's not the first time Corey has taken on a character carrying something heavy beneath the surface. His portrayal of King George delved into mental illness with depth and sensitivity. For Corey, playing these emotionally complex men - whether dealing with physical or mental health struggles - is something he sees as both a responsibility and a privilege.
"As a man - well different people have different experiences - but never in your life are you really taught that it is all good for you to experience emotion on that level and cry in such an uncontrollable way", he says.
"It's quite easy to do like one tear and be stoic and all strong about it, but to really let yourself go is difficult. It's important for me to still strive towards that. I mean, it's not why I do it, but hopefully it's doing something positive to show that men can be vulnerable."
Like Jamie, Mylchreest says he often uses "humour as a defense mechanism" and is very "passionate" about one thing - Jamie's being his career as an English professor, and Corey, his acting.
In fact, he's working on another project as we speak, telling me to ignore his 'bedhead' as he's just finished filming scenes in Weston-super-Mare.
"I've been told not to wash it, because my character is meant to have curly hair, and apparently it's better. So, there's so much product in my hair right now," he reveals.
In between filming, Corey has been squeezing in episodes of Love Island with his girlfriend, Hannah Holland, and housemate (priorities). "When will she learn?" he says, referring to Toni's chaotic triangle with Harrison and Lauren, before noting there's been a "switch" - and it looks like she might be moving on (spoiler: she did).
While juggling his busy schedule and relationship can be hard, Corey is realistic about how to make everything work: "I think it's always, as anything is, about communication and again the choice, openness, understanding and, commitment."
And he applies the same considerations to his on-screen relationships. Bringing Jamie's vulnerability to life also meant building real trust and connection with his costar Sofia - something that happened almost instantly for Corey.
"I did the chemistry test with Sofia, met [writer] Iain [Morris], and that day I realised I really wanted to work with them both," he says, recalling the audition process.
"She's [Sofia] such a ray of positivity. It's like all up, up, up, up, up. I don't know where she gets the energy, but, yeah, she's so amazing."
The actor does have one bone to pick, however. Sofia introduced him to American sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top while on set, and he wasn't a fan. "That's my one cultural lesson from filming: don't eat sweet potato pie," he laughs.
In My Oxford Year, there's a memorable kissing scene in the rain between Anna and Jamie, but when I ask if Corey's had any romantic moments like that of his own, he keeps his personal recollections to himself.
"I think love fundamentally is a doing thing. To love someone is a verb. It's a choice. And I think that's what's so beautiful about this [the film]," he says.
"When there are difficult things for people in their life and people still choose to love them knowing that it will be harder for themselves as well, that is a really beautiful thing. It's also sort of why we're here, isn't it - to love? It's the most powerful, healing, weaponised - everything. It's everything."
Born in London's Leytonstone in 1998, Corey was drawn to the film industry from a young age, initially dreaming of a career in visual effects. His interest shifted to acting when he found out a school friend was going to be in a play.
"My mum told me that my friend who had moved school was doing a play and the burn in my chest of pain that it wasn't me... I never thought about doing it before, but the pain... I didn't know that was a thing," he says.
He later attended Junior Guildhall, a Saturday school for music and drama, before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Acting from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 2020. Shortly afterwards, he was cast in open-air productions of the Shakespeare plays Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 2022, he landed a role in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman.
Later this month, he'll star alongside Suranne Jones in Netflix's Hostage, a political thriller following a high-stakes kidnapping and blackmail plot during the French president's visit to the UK.
"I play Matteo Lewis, who is the French president's stepson and the son of a sort of oligarchical figure in France. Sort of Rupert Murdoch-adjacent guy who controls all the media in France, and who works for an NGO and works to rehouse refugees, and that is in conflict with who the French president has politically become," he says of the role.
"Matteo's storyline gets further interwoven into the main storyline as we move forward through the story. It's gripping. It's thrilling. Lots of plot shocks and twists. It should be fun."
Although he still gets pretty "nervous" about acting "just because I'm on screen and people will see it", Corey still has big career dreams and he knows the role he'd like to play next.
"I think it would be good to play a bit of a p***k. I think I've done quite a lot of soft boy now," he jokes.
"I think it would be nice to do something that's just so far away from me. I'm not saying I'm great and that those characters are villains or heroes, but someone that's not nice, I think would be fun. Also, I've dipped into comedy now and I would like to do more with that."
Whether he's playing royalty, or a romantic lead, Corey Mylchreest is clearly just getting started. And if his next chapter includes a villain with a sharp tongue and perfect comedic timing, we'll definitely be watching.
My Oxford Year is available to stream on Netflix.