Crush of the week: Charlie Cox

Charlie Cox has an undeniably cute face. If I had to describe it, I would go for boyishly handsome, lovely, appealing. It is open, and devoid of guile, which means you trust it – and whatever character he happens to be playing. His everyman appeal means you may not have realised how many times you’ve seen him on screen; in Sky Atlantic’s Boardwalk Empire, for example, playing Irish immigrant Owen Slater, and in The Theory Of Everything, playing Jonathan Hellyer Jones.

But now, in possibly his biggest part yet, the 32-year-old Brit actor’s lovely face is largely hidden from view. He is starring as Marvel’s blind and masked superhero, Daredevil (all 13 episodes are on Netflix). The decision to give the job to “some random English guy who didn’t grow up on comics is probably not ideal for many of the fans”, Cox has said, but he needn’t worry: he’s selling it utterly. US audiences are aflutter at the first non-American to play the role of the Man Without Fear.

Cox first came to my attention in 2007’s Stardust, based on Neil Gaiman’s novel. In that, his sweet face made the audience root even harder for him as he came up against witches, bloodthirsty princes and horrible would-be girlfriends. Cox is charming, but never too oily. He is the kind of actor who urges you to look closer, via tiny movements: the curve of his upper lip when he smiles, his gait, the way he puts his hand in his hair. In Marvel’s Daredevil, he plays the superhero’s alter ego, lawyer Matt Murdock, in red-tinted sunglasses, so you rarely even see his eyes. At least the rest of his face is on show. Did I mention he had a lovely face?