7 Surprising Things about Jonah Hauer-King
Find out 7 essential facts about Jonah Hauer-King, starring on MASTERPIECE in World on Fire and as the live-action Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid. From music and singing to Maya Hawke, The Little Mermaid to Little Women, get the lowdown on this rising star and MASTERPIECE regular.
Watch Season 1 of World on Fire.
- 1.
Jonah Hauer-King Stars in World on Fire on MASTERPIECE
In the WWII series World on Fire, as seen on MASTERPIECE, Jonah Hauer-King plays Harry Chase, a young British translator with a flair for languages, deceit and heartbreak, stationed in Warsaw during the lead-up to the War. Hauer-King described his personal connection to the war’s history, saying “I’ve always felt quite connected to the Second World War because my grandparents are Polish Jews who fled in the ’30s to America, which is where my mum grew up. War is so unsettling and there’s so much upheaval. Because of that I’ve always been really fascinated in how war affects one’s identity.”
Hauer-King joins Sean Bean, Helen Hunt, Lesley Manville, and more in World on Fire. Binge Season 1 with PBS Passport, an added member benefit.
- 2.
Jonah Hauer-King Played Paul Wilcox in Howards End
Jonah Hauer-King returned to MASTERPIECE in Howards End, E.M. Forster’s masterpiece of love, loss, and connection in a changing world, in 2020. The iconic Edwardian period drama also starred Matthew Macfadyen (Succession), Hayley Atwell (The Long Song), Julia Ormond, Tracey Ullman, Philippa Coulthard, and Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things, Les Misérables), among others.
- 3.
Jonah Hauer-King Played Opposite Maya Hawke in Little Women
In the 2018 Little Women on MASTERPIECE, Jonah Hauer-King joined Maya Hawke, Willa Fitzgerald, Katherine Newton, Angela Lansbury, Emily Watson, and Michael Gambon to bring the classic story to the small screen in three episodes. Playing Laurie (most recently reprised by Timothée Chalamet in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women) wasn’t too far of a stretch, he told MASTERPIECE, describing, “I think he’s very open, and he wears his heart on his sleeve, and he’s full of life. And I feel I connect to all of those things about him. He is most comfortable when he’s with other people and connecting with other people, and that’s something that I really feel and recognize in myself.”
- 4.
Jonah Hauer-King is an Awesome Castmate
When filming Little Women, Hauer-King donned a bonnet—and even a corset—in solidarity to his female castmates! He described, “I think I had two or three hours’ spare time before I was filming again, and I was close with a lot of the people that were doing costume…and we just said, let’s do something fun. So it started out [with] just a bonnet. And then we thought, “that’s not enough, let’s give you a dress,” and so I put a dress on. And then I said, “well it’s only fair, the girls are wearing corsets all day, every day, which are not that easy to wear—I’ll put on a corset and a blouse and a bonnet and I’ll have the little sort of handbag thing.” And I spent about two hours running around…people would just walk straight past me and not really think twice—I looked that much like a woman that no one really blinked.”
Hauer-King described the whole experience of making Little Women as special, saying, “[W]e just couldn’t keep a straight face. I think most of the fun behind-the-scenes stuff was about us being friends on set—doing a job like this is always fun, but when you’re doing it with your friends, which is what we became very quickly, it’s like a dream. You have dance parties at lunch, and you go out for dinner every night. And we spent every evening drawing and making music and painting with one another. We stayed in this funny hotel, which we all grew to love, and we all had these little balconies. We would go out onto our separate balconies and sing to each other and run lines. It was kind of silly, but kind of special as well.”
- 5.
Jonah Hauer-King is a UK/US Dual Citizen
With an American theatre producer mother, Debra Hauer, and a British restauranteur father, Jeremy King, Jonah Hauer-King grew up in London but considers himself to be American as well, he told MASTERPIECE in promotion of the 2018 Little Women. He described his connection to America and the American spirit, “I am American…My mum grew up in San Francisco and she moved to London when she was about my age, about 23. And I think maybe the American spirit is about throwing yourself into things, but living a full life and being, sort of, tenacious and enthusiastic and determined. And that’s something that I’ve got from my mum already and felt like it was present on the set and present in Louisa May Alcott’s writing as well.”
- 6.
Jonah Hauer-King Stars as Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid
Jonah Hauer-King plays the love-struck Prince Eric in Disney’s 2023 live-action Little Mermaid! Halle Bailey stars as Ariel, joining a cast that includes Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, Awkwafina as Scuttle, and Daveed Diggs as Sebastian. It includes songs from the 1994 animated film, plus new songs from original composer Alan Menken, who’s collaborating with none other than Lin-Manuel Miranda!
- 7.
And Boy, Does Jonah Hauer-King Sing!
Jonah Hauer-King is called upon to sing in the live action The Little Mermaid, and he definitely has the chops! Describing his own personal passion (or, in the context of Little Women, his “castle in the air”), he revealed to MASTERPIECE that “it would be music—for me that was something that I continue to love. When I was growing up, I played a lot of guitar and sang, and for a long time that’s what I thought I was going to do. Then I started doing more acting, but it’s definitely a massive passion of mine where I feel safe and comfortable and fulfilled. It’s something that, thankfully, I’ve started doing professionally as well…It’s really lovely to have different outlets and to have different creative stimulus. So music: that’s sort of my safe space, my happy place.”
While filming Little Women, Jonah Hauer-King and Maya Hawke would collaborate off-screen. He told MASTERPIECE, “We wrote a lot of music together, we wrote a lot of songs. She’s a great guitarist; she’s an amazing poet and song writer, and she writes incredible lyrics. We often found her writing lyrics which I would put to music. But it would also go both ways. It was really fun, because I was learning piano for the role. I had a keyboard in my room that they had given me. I had, like, two guitars, and we had a piano. It felt like our own little mini-music studio.”
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Binge Season 1 of World on Fire and all three episodes of Little Women right now with PBS Passport, an added member benefit! Learn more about streaming MASTERPIECE shows on PBS Passport.
