British actor Tom Blyth is making his Netflix debut in the romantic comedy People We Meet on Vacation, out January 9.
The 30-year-old plays Alex, a reserved high school teacher, who spends his summers traveling with his easygoing friend Poppy (Emily Bader), until a falling-out forces them to confront their feelings for each other on one final vacation.
Blyth revealed that he jumped at the opportunity to star in a romcom. “I was just eager to do something light and fun, and a bit sexy,” he said in an interview with People in January. “I’ve been doing a lot of serious films back-to-back. So I was ready for something a bit more light.”
Blyth recently appeared in a number of dramas and thrillers, including the 2025 films The Fence, Wasteman, and Plainclothes, but is perhaps best known for his role as Coriolanus Snow in 2023’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbird & Snakes.
Here’s what else you should know about the up-and-coming actor.
Blyth made his own movies as a kid
Growing up in the suburbs of Nottingham, England, Blyth discovered his passion for acting at an early age. The child of divorced parents, he often frequented the movies with his father, TV producer Gavin Blyth, during their monthly visits and soon began making his own short films.
“I would go outside with my stepbrother and my friends, and we’d make our own zombie films or little clips and then edit them together on whatever the equivalent of iMovie was back then, on the Windows computer,” the actor told Sharp magazine in October 2025. “That was the first seedling of trying to do it—not professionally—but actually making something. That was probably when I was like nine or ten.”
His father’s death pushed him into acting
When he was just 14 years old, Blyth’s father died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The tragic loss ultimately propelled him to pursue a career in film—a dream he and his dad shared. Shortly after his father’s passing, one of Blyth’s teachers at Nottingham’s Television Workshop advised him to use his grief as an acting tool.
“His bluntness was mortifying, but thankfully I saw that my grief wasn’t something to hide away but to channel as an actor,” he told The Wall Street Journal in June 2022. The following year, he landed his first professional acting role in the 2010 film Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe.
He went to Juilliard
After moving to London to join the National Youth Theatre, Blyth went on to perfect his craft at Juilliard in New York City. In an interview with The Times in November 2023, he confessed that relocating to the United States helped him gain more confidence in his acting abilities. “I knew I had good instincts for acting and I knew that I liked performing but I couldn’t let go of my own self-judgment,” Blyth said. “It was a slow process of coming out of my shell, which culminated in me going to the States to try and knock down the wall.”
After graduating in 2020, the actor appeared in the 2021 war drama Benediction. Just two years later, he landed his breakout role as the titular character in the MGM+ series Billy the Kid, which ran for three seasons. The following year, Blyth starred in The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, marking his first major blockbuster.
He knows how to horseback ride
During his time on Billy the Kid, he became at an expert at horseback riding. He quickly learned to ride just three weeks before filming started, and, once on set, did most of his own stunt work. “They let me ride, they let me fall off horses, they let me wrangle cattle—crazy stuff—run on rooftops while shooting guns,” Blyth recalled to People in October 2025. “It’s like old-school filmmaking.”
Blyth uses music to get into character
Besides studying the script, the actor gets into character, in part, by listening to music, especially if the project is set in the past. “I’ll listen to the music of that time or try to immerse myself in the culture of that time, because I think that all makes up who we are,” he told Sharp. “On Plainclothes, we had a big, long playlist of ‘90s music.”
He’s an avid surfer
When he’s not busy on set, Blyth enjoys being outdoors, and can often be found hanging out in either the mountains or the ocean. “I spend a lot of time in upstate New York and still go there to get away in between jobs,” he told Numéro Netherlands in December 2023. “I also took up surfing 6 years ago and that gives me a lot of joy.” Describing himself as an ambivert, Blyth revealed he also likes reading, watching movies, and going out with his friends.
How to Watch People We Meet on Vacation on Netflix
People We Meet on Vacation arrives on Netflix January 9. The movie adaptation of Emily Henry’s 2021 novel stars Tom Blyth as Alex and Emily Bader as Poppy.
Catherine Caruso joined the Biography.com staff in August 2024, having previously worked as a freelance journalist for several years. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she studied English literature. When she’s not working on a new story, you can find her reading, hitting the gym, or watching too much TV.
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