{"id":916791,"date":"2026-07-01T19:14:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T00:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/01\/13-year-old-lord-of-the-flies-star-david-mckenna-embraced-the-wild-in-his-screen-debut\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T19:14:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T00:14:27","slug":"13-year-old-lord-of-the-flies-star-david-mckenna-embraced-the-wild-in-his-screen-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/01\/13-year-old-lord-of-the-flies-star-david-mckenna-embraced-the-wild-in-his-screen-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"13-Year-Old \u2018Lord of the Flies\u2019 Star David McKenna Embraced the Wild in His Screen Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In William Golding\u2019s 1954 novel \u201cLord of the Flies,\u201d Piggy represents order. He\u2019s not the most charismatic boy marooned on the deserted island, nor does he hold the most sway among his peers. But he\u2019s the glue that binds the group together, and \u2014 spoiler alert! \u2014 his murder destroys any sense of civilization.<\/p>\n

So when Jack Thorne, co-creator of last year\u2019s \u201cAdolescence,\u201d set out to adapt Golding\u2019s dystopian classic about schoolboys\u2019 descent into savagery, he needed an actor who could become a brainy, bespectacled paragon of order. In February 2024, an open casting call found its way to the mother of David McKenna, a Belfast child with acting aspirations. Instead of a script, there was a prompt: \u201cIt said,\u201d McKenna recalled, \u201c\u2018if you were stranded on a tropical island, who would you want to be stranded with?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

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David McKenna and Lox Pratt in \u201cLord of the Flies.\u201d (J Redza\/Eleven\/Sony Pictures Television)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His answer? The West End cast of \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables.\u201d<\/p>\n

As you might have guessed, McKenna, now 13, is a theater kid. He took his first acting class at age 4 and has appeared in many school productions, but he\u2019d never done anything as big as a Netflix limited series. After he sent off his audition, casting directors Nina Gold<\/a> and Martin Ware pulled him into a wider vetting process involving chemistry tests with his eventual co-stars \u2014 including British actor Winston Sawyers, who plays Ralph, a rational, good-hearted lad who becomes Piggy\u2019s ally as the island falls into lawlessness.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think Winston and I have quite a similar relationship to Ralph and Piggy,\u201d McKenna said. \u201cWe\u2019re very, very different people \u2014 different backgrounds, different experiences. We don\u2019t have that much in common, but when you put us together, we actually do get on really well. We accept each other, and we did that from day one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delivering his first on-screen performance deep in the rainforests of Malaysia amid torrential storms certainly took some getting used to.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was mental,\u201d McKenna said. \u201cOur hotel was built in the jungle, literally. It was a resort built in the jungle, so you\u2019d walk out and there\u2019d just be monkeys and lizards saying good morning. From a hotel where we were getting our costumes done, we\u2019d get a speedboat to this remote island in the middle of the ocean, and we\u2019d be hiking up mountains. It was physically hard, hiking those mountains in those rainforests.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKenna worked with acting coach Tommy Lawrence, who encouraged him to create a backstory for Piggy that would fill lacunae from the novel.<\/p>\n

\u201cTommy Lawrence, who\u2019s brilliant, he and I during the rehearsal process would talk about it a lot, the way Piggy\u2019s grown up,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s around adults loads. He\u2019s not really around kids. In the lunch break at school, he goes and hangs around with the teachers \u2014 which is quite similar to me, to be fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Before being cast, McKenna was aware of \u201cLord of the Flies\u201d but had not yet cracked the book. Once he dove deeper into the story, he found it to be shockingly relevant to modern times. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you put 30 boys today on that island, I think the same thing would happen, which is sad, but I think that is the truth,\u201d he said. \u201cThere needs to be a world where that doesn\u2019t happen, which I think is possible but very far away.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKenna enjoyed playing a character who is not afraid to stand up for what he believes in, even if that integrity leads to his death. And it\u2019s a horrific one. In the book, a member of Jack\u2019s group drops a boulder on Piggy, who tumbles off a ledge and shatters his skull before being swept out to sea. It happens relatively quickly, whereas in Thorne\u2019s adaptation, it is a grueling 17-minute ordeal. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat scene was meant to be so much longer. There\u2019s a lot that was cut, a lot of dialogue between Ralph and Piggy,\u201d McKenna said. \u201cMarc Munden, the director, might have mentioned that the edit was at one point too gruesome and they had to tone it down a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those saddened by Piggy\u2019s demise can at least look forward to 2027, when McKenna will be seen in Greta Gerwig\u2019s \u201cNarnia: The Magician\u2019s Nephew.\u201d<\/a> He\u2019s still mapping out what comes after that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to do something at home in Belfast, something with an Irish crew,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d like to do theater. But I\u2019d also like to play roles that make people take away something and make people cry. That\u2019s quite fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story first ran in the Limited Series\/TV Movie issue of TheWrap\u2019s awards magazine. Read more from the issue\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Riz Ahmed photographed for TheWrap by Nori Rasmussen Martinez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Casey Loving
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In William Golding\u2019s 1954 novel \u201cLord of the Flies,\u201d Piggy represents order. He\u2019s not the most charismatic boy marooned on the deserted island, nor does he hold the most sway among his peers. But he\u2019s the glue that binds the group together, and \u2014 spoiler alert! \u2014 his murder destroys any sense of civilization. So<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":916792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[775,1868],"tags":[44654,7039],"class_list":["post-916791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-year-old","category-lord","tag-year-old","tag-lord"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}