Leo Woodall, 29, is leaning hard against the polished image that made him famous. In A24’s Tony, he plays Sal, a grimy, womanising restaurant worker who uses hard drugs to get through kitchen shifts and spends much of the film behaving badly.
That shift matters because Woodall first broke out as Jack in season two of HBO’s The White Lotus in 2022, then followed with Dexter Mayhew opposite Ambika Mod in One Day and Roxster McDuff in Bridget Jones’ fourth film, Mad About the Boy. In this run, the industry has kept putting him in romantic or desirable roles; Tony pushes the opposite way.
Sal in Tony
Sal is written as a character with almost no polish. He sleeps with almost every girl he encounters, gets into bar fights, and has racy activities with a newlywed bride. That is a very different lane from the boyish, romantic parts that made Woodall visible in the first place, and it gives him a role defined by rough edges rather than charm.
Dominic Sessa said Woodall still carries the kind of appeal that reads on camera even when the character is acting out. “He’s so charming. If you’ve met him, you love him,” Sessa told. “He’s so kind to everyone. He plays such a piece of crap in this movie, but people are in love with him. He’s beautiful. He’s got the most amazing looks, the eyes, the smile.”
Heartthrob Pressure
Woodall has been blunt about the downside of being cast as a heartthrob. Speaking to Radio Times, he said, “When you’re playing a role described like that, you can’t help but look at yourself and go, “Am I that guy?” There’s sometimes pressure in making people buy that.”
That is the useful tension in Tony: the film asks him to play against the image that got him here, but it does not erase it. His performance still sits inside the same appeal that made Jack and Dexter Mayhew work, which is why a role like Sal can land as a test of whether audiences will follow him into something meaner, messier, and less flattering.
Tuner and Tony
Tuner, released earlier this year, makes the pattern even clearer. Woodall played a piano tuner with incredibly sensitive hearing, and that detail draws criminals because he is good at cracking open safes. It is another role built on an unusual skill rather than the easy glamour attached to his earlier parts.
For now, Tony and Tuner show the same move in different forms: Woodall is being cast beyond the clean-cut lane that once defined him. If that keeps going, the business case is simple — he is no longer just a romantic lead, but an actor who can carry characters with edge, damage, and utility.
