‘Sex Education’ is Launching a New Generation of Stars in Hollywood

Netflix‘s beloved and bawdy hit Sex Education bid adieu to audiences last week with the premiere of its fourth and final season. The show was a refreshing look at teen life, that sought to dismantle any sense of shame associated with the pursuit of sexual pleasure all while serving up a heartwarming school soap.

Sex Education might be over now, but its stars are far from done with Netflix, television, and Hollywood. It’s no longer breaking news that Greta Gerwig cast not one, not two, but three Sex Education stars in her monster smash Barbie, but what you might not realize is how Sex Education‘s cast is collectively poised for superstardom. Emma Mackey came thisclose to starring as Lois Lane in the upcoming Superman: Legacy, Ncuti Gatwa is about to take over the TARDIS for Disney+, and Aimee Lou Wood has plans to follow up her BAFTA win and appearance in last year’s Oscar-nominated Living with an upcoming Masterpiece series and a comedy co-starring Nicola Coughlan.

The stars of Sex Education are making moves following the finale of their Netflix hit. So much so, they could be poised for the sort of collective big breaks we’ve not seen since another saucy British teen soap, Skins, launched Nicholas Hoult, Dev Patel, Daniel Kaluuya, Kaya Scodelario, Jack O’Connell, Hannah Murray, Joe Dempsie, Nicholas Pasqualino, and Kathryn Prescott.

So what are your favorite Sex Education/Moorhead alums up to next? Which of them are next going to be on your cineplex screen? Who’s headed back to your Netflix queue in new buzzworthy projects? And who’s poised to become the next big thing in Hollywood?

Here’s your guide to what the young stars of Sex Education have coming up next…

• Asa Butterfield 

  Sex Education lead Asa Butterfield was hands down the biggest name (outside of Gillian Anderson) in cast as Otis way back when the show launched in 2019. As a child actor, Butterfield worked with none other than Martin Scorsese in the enchanting film Hugo and later starred in the big screen adaptation of Ender’s Game. And he almost — almost — beat out Tom Holland for the role of Spider-Man in the MCU. According to IMDB, Butterfield is set to star opposite Logan Lerman and Kristine Froseth in College Republicans, a film about young Karl Rove. 

• Emma Mackey

  27-year-old Emma Mackey made her professional debut as Maeve in Season 1 of Sex Education and has since starred in Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile, the Brontë biopic Emily, and played “Physicist Barbie” in Greta Gerwig’s massive hit Barbie. Recently, Mackey was one of three actresses chosen to screen-test for the role of Lois Lane in James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy, signaling that Hollywood has bigger plans for the Netflix star than just playing a supporting role to Margot Robbie. 

• Ncuti Gatwa

  Ncuti Gatwa had a vibrant stage career before Sex Education turned him into everyone’s dream BFF, Eric. Like Mackey, he also appeared in Barbie, only Gatwa got to play one of the infinite Kens. On the small screen, he’s continuing to make big moves. He has a role in Apple TV+’s hotly anticipated miniseries Masters of the Air (aka the third installment in Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’s look at the lives of servicemen in World War II) and will be playing the iconic British hero The Doctor in the next season of Doctor Who. 

• Connor Swindells

  Connor Swindells is the third — yes, the THIRD — Sex Education star to have appeared in Greta Gerwig’s summer smash Barbie (only he played a Mattel employee from our “real world”). Swindells has been working steadily outside of playing Adam in Sex Education, appearing in the 2020 movie Emma as Robert Martin and starring in the series SAS: Rogue Heroes. He is following Sex Education up with a role in Scoop, Netflix’s upcoming film about Prince Andrew’s disastrous 2019 television interview. 

• Aimee Lou Wood

  29-year-old actress Aimee Lou Wood is yet another actor who made the leap from the stage to the screen with her gig on Sex Education. Since winning the BAFTA for her performance as Aimee on the Netflix show in 2021, she has appeared opposite Oscar-nominee Bill Nighy in the film Living, co-starred in the upcoming Masterpiece miniseries Alice & Jack, and filmed a raucous medieval comedy called Seize Them! with Bridgerton star Nicola Couglan.  She is currently working on Toxic Town, a star-studded miniseries about the tragic toxic waste case in the East Midlands.

• Simone Ashley

  Simone Ashley left her supporting role of Olivia in Sex Education in 2021 to take on the lead role of Kate Sharma in Season 2 of the Netflix mega-hit Bridgerton. She will return in Bridgerton Season 3 as the newly married Viscountess Bridgerton. Her work on the Regency romance romp put Ashley on various Variety, Forbes, Time, and The Hollywood Reporter lists of up-and-coming stars. This past year, she played Ariel’s sister Indira in Disney’s live action version of The Little Mermaid.

• Other Sex Education Alums to Look Out For… Mimi Keene, Kedar Williams-Stirling, and Tanya Reynolds

  • Ruby actress Mimi Keene, who continues to stun whenever she hits a red carpet. We’re not quite sure what she’s got lined up next, but with 3.4 million IG followers, there’s no doubt she’s got a fervent fanbase that will follow her next moves.
  • Jackson himself, Kedar Williams-Stirling, is a talented actor and writer who popped up in Steve McQueen’s critically acclaimed Small Axe. We’re on tenter hooks to see where he winds up next… 
  • Tanya Reynolds, who played Lily on the series, has already lined up a number of gigs, including a starring role in Netflix’s The Decameron.