Jude Hill

Jude Hill (born 2010) is a Northern Irish child actor. He is known for his lead role in Kenneth Branagh's film Belfast (2021) based on Branagh's childhood, for which Hill won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Young Performer. Hill was born in Gilford, a village in County Down near Armagh to parents Shauneen and Darryl. He has a younger sister and a younger brother. He attended St John's Primary School. He took drama classes at the Shelley Lowry School in Portadown from the age of four. Hill made his feature film debut in Kenneth Branagh's Belfast. The film's story is mostly told through the eyes of Hill's character Buddy, "a smart, cheery 9-year-old and a fictional version of Branagh himself", as described by Jeanette Catsoulis of The New York Times. Hill was nine when he was cast as the film's lead out of 300 young actors who auditioned, ten when filming took place, and eleven when the film premiered in 2021.