The rapid rise of the < i > X-Men < /i > and < i > American Animals < /i > actor.

As Peter Maximoff, aka Quicksilver in the X-Men films, the young actor plays Magneto’s supernaturally speedy son. And, in real life, too, Mr Peters is something of a whirlwind. When we meet at a quiet, airy cafe in New York’s Chelsea, he’s awaiting the 1 June opening of his new film, American Animals, and shooting Mr Ryan Murphy’s Pose – as well as his third X-Men picture, Dark Phoenix.

It’s a lot. He opts for decaf. “I try not to take the business so seriously,” he says, complimenting my A.P.C. shirt and noting that he has a favourite sweater from the same brand. “You have to be serious, but it’s showbusiness and there’s a lot of insanity and unpredictability.”

Mr Peters is calming those waters with introspective, thoughtful roles – working simultaneously on edgy independent films and with the biggest actors and directors in blockbusters – that might make a more particular impact, not just on his career, but on viewers and his own development. Which brings us to American Animals, directed by Mr Bart Layton, a film the likes of which we probably haven’t seen before. It’s the true story of four college-aged friends who plan to heist rare art books (among them a first edition of Mr Darwin’s The Origin of Species) from a college library in Kentucky. The film splices together documentary footage of the real life young criminals, and their ringleader Mr Warren Lipka, with the dramatised heist. “People were asking me, ‘Shouldn’t it be like I, Tonya? Won’t it break the fourth wall’?” Mr Peters says. “I was a little nervous about it. But I trusted Bart.”