With only two professional acting credits to his name, Lox Pratt jokes that he already has concerns about typecasting. That’s because his first two acting roles are infamous antagonists from seminal works: Jack Merridew, the leader of the savage tribe of boys in Lord of the Flies (now streaming on Netflix) and Draco Malfoy, the nemesis to the beloved boy wizard  in HBO’s upcoming television adaptation of Harry Potter.

The 14-year-old English actor admits, “It’s an ongoing joke with my friends, that there must be something about me to keep getting cast as these bad guys.” But it helps that neither Jack nor Draco are cardboard villains, but complex young men struggling with unimaginable pressures. “I was reassured I had enough to play with that they weren’t just going to be seen as villains,” Pratt notes. “And honestly, both parts are unmissable. I couldn’t say no.”

Pratt always knew he wanted to be a storyteller: He directed, wrote and starred in films with his brothers, shot on their phones. He also took classes at Jason Thomas Performing Arts in Cornwall and appeared in play versions of “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Red Shoes.” Then a friend of his mother’s pointed him towards a Facebook post about the casting of a new TV adaptation of William Golding’s 1954 classic The Lord of the Flies, adapted by Adolescence co-creator/writer Jack Thorne.

Pratt sent in a self-tape reading for the role of Ralph, the good-natured protagonist who fights for civilized behavior after a group of schoolboys are stranded on a deserted island. But he was ultimately called in for the role of Jack, who starts up his own, more savage, faction on the island. Prior to the series, Pratt only had a passing familiarity with the story, largely from an episode of The Simpsons that parodied the famous novel. He quickly dove into the book, and was caught off guard by its intensity. “It hit me like a truck,” he notes. “It’s just phenomenal and honest and brilliantly, brilliantly written.”

After a long audition process where he was matched up with several other young actors, Pratt booked the role and realized he would have to start preparing. There was a full month of rehearsals with the cast and he continued to work closely with director Marc Munden to develop the character. “We pulled from different characters – a little Tommy Shelby from Peaky Blinders, a little Malcolm McDowell from If… and A Clockwork Orange, and just made this patchwork while also exploring his shame and aggression.”

The shoot in Malaysia was long and taxing, with “a lot of sweating and a lot of mosquitoes” and tents instead of trailers. “But at the end of the day, it was really quite fun,” says Pratt. “I was on an island with wonderful warm water with a bunch of my mates.” The cast was so bonded, it helped the actor pull off some of the scenes where Jack has to be particularly cruel or threatening. The character of Piggy, played by David McKenna, suffers the most at Jack’s abuse but Pratt says they trusted each other so much, it was never an issue. “David would say, ‘Come on, hit me harder next time!’ Even when I would say the most horrible things to him, he’d just go, ‘OK, do it again!’”

It was likely good practice for the role of Draco, who, like Jack, is a privileged bully that travels with a gang of sycophantic cronies. And while the actor can’t say much about the upcoming series, he can reveal that we’ll learn more about the character. “You get to see him at home and start to see why he is who he is and even maybe feel a bit of sympathy towards him,” Pratt says. “He’s a bit like Jack but they’re also two very different characters in their kinds of suffering.”

Pratt points out both characters come from challenging families. “Draco is loved, but has this crippling family pressure. Jack is just flat-out unloved; he doesn’t know what affection feels like,” he says. “Jack needs to feed off the crowds, there is really little happiness there.”

Ultimately, the actor says both were “phenomenal” parts he couldn’t turn down. “They’ve both got some depth to them that really impressed me,” he reveals. “And they were set in very different worlds with very different experiences.”