THE VERY FAST, ACHINGLY SLOW, METEORIC RISE OF AARON PIERRE

Maybe you missed him in The Underground Railroad or Rebel Ridge. But with major roles in DC's Lanterns and Star Wars: Starfighter, Pierre is evolving into a new kind of action hero.

- Nojan Aminosharei

IT HAPPENED ALL AT ONCE which is usually how growing up goes. For Aaron Pierre, it was the summer he turned 14 years old. His family lived in government-owned council estate housing in West Croydon, an urban neighborhood in South London. He was a small kid, short and wiry. Sensitive too, with big feelings and big dreams. Anything he did, really, he did big. He discovered he could run fast, so he trained at a local sports club, putting his energy into the 100-meter sprint because it famously crowns the fastest man in the world.

His first job was at his mom’s friend’s hair salon. “I would take their jackets. I would offer them a magazine and a hot or cold beverage of their choice,” he says. He was a teenage boy working as a beauty shop concierge, but even that he did big. When his proprietress asked if he would be interested in doing hair, he said yes. And he meant it. “I thought, I'd love to show these very kind ladies that I can belong there too. But...” He did one shampoo and was kindly asked to go back to hanging coats. “...evidently I couldn’t. How embarrassing for me!”

By the end of that summer, Pierre had grown exponentially. Today he stands at 6'3", with broad shoulders and an imposing frame, and it wasn’t much different then. Suddenly, the small kid was as big as his feelings. He felt out of place in his own body. His clothes didn’t fit right. He hunched down and rolled his shoulders forward. He lowered his head and lowered his voice, which had also dropped into a booming baritone. He did everything he could to make himself small again.