Asa Butterfield is an English actor who is known for his roles in the 2011 adventure fantasy Hugo, the period drama The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008), the sci-fi movie Ender`s Game (2013) and Tim Burton`s 2016 fantasy film Miss Peregrine`s Home for Peculiar Children. Butterfield is one of the most promising young actors to have emerged out of Britain in the recent years, and has received numerous nominations and accolades for his performance in several critically acclaimed films.

Early Life
Asa Maxwell Thornton Farr Butterfield was born in Islington, London, to Sam Butterfield and Jacqueline Farr. At the age of 7, he started attending the Young Actors` Theatre in Islington. It was here that Butterfield`s natural flair for acting was discovered.

Personal Life
Butterfield has an elder brother named Morgan, and two half-sisters - Loxie and Marlie. An avid gamer, he has developed an iPad app called Racing Blind along with his father and brother. Butterfield has been learning to play the piano since he was a kid.

Movie Career
Asa Butterfield made his film debut at the age of 9, with a minor role in the coming of age comedy Son of Rambow (2007). His breakout role came in the following year, with the period drama The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which was based on the novel of the same name by John Boyne. Set in the times of the Second World War, the movie narrated the story of an unlikely friendship between Bruno, the son of a Nazi commandant and a Jewish boy imprisoned in a concentration camp. The movie was met with critical acclaim and was a commercial success, and Butterfield`s performance was universally lauded. For his portrayal of Bruno, Butterfield received a British Independent Film Awards nomination for Most Promising Newcomer and a Young Artist Awards nomination for Best Leading Performance.

In 2010, Butterfield appeared in the horror thriller The Wolfman and the fantasy comedy Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. While the former flopped at the box office, the latter was well-received. He then played the titular role in Martin Scorsese`s Hugo (2011), an adventure drama that recounted the story of an orphaned boy who gets entangled in a mystery involving his late father. The movie opened to rave reviews, though it didn`t do well commercially. At the 84th Academy Awards, Hugo was nominated for 11 awards and won 5, while Butterfield was nominated at the Critics` Choice Awards and Saturn Awards, eventually winning the Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Young Actor.

In 2013, the actor played the titular character in the sci-fi action movie Ender`s Game, which was based on the novel of the same name by Orson Scott Card. The film opened to mixed reviews and failed to make waves at the box office, but earned Butterfield yet another Saturn Awards nomination. In his next, titled X + Y (A Brilliant Young Mind in the United States), Butterfield played a Nathan Ellis, a teenage mathematics prodigy who has a hard time making social connections. The movie was well-received and currently holds 86% approval rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. For his portrayal of the character (which was based on mathematical genius Daniel Lightwing), he received a British Independent Film Awards nomination for Best Actor.

The comedy drama Ten Thousand Saints was Butterfield`s sole release in 2015, but the movie didn`t make much of an impact critically or commercially. In 2016, the actor appeared alongside Eva Green, Judi Dench and Samuel L. Jackson in the Tim Burton fantasy Miss Peregrine`s Home for Peculiar Children. The movie was well-received, and went on to earn over $285 million in the box office. The sci-fi romance The Space Between Us and the WWI drama Journey`s End are the actor`s projects in 2017. His 2020 release includes Greed.

Television Career
Asa Butterfield made his television debut with a minor role in the tv drama After Thomas (2006), at the age of 9. In 2008, he guest-starred as Donny in the procedural drama Ashes to Ashes and as Mordred in the fantasy adventure series Merlin.