Although Taron Egerton has a handful of upcoming movies on the horizon, including Tetris and Kingsman 3, lately the actor has been keeping busy performing in the stage production COCK. However, the actor fainted on stage during the play’s opening night on West End earlier this month. Now word’s come in that that Egerton has tested positive for COVID.
The update comes from the official COCK Instagram page (I never thought I’d type those words), with the official statement saying that in accordance with the production’s health and safety protocols, Taron Egerton will be isolating. For those who’ve been wanting to see the Kingsman star onstage, he’s expected to return next week. In the meantime, the role of M will be played by understudy Joel Harper-Jackson.
This is another run of bad luck for Taron Egerton during his time on COCK, although it could certainly be much worse. Following his collapse on stage, the actor shared on social media that he had a “slightly sore neck and a bruised ego,” but was otherwise ok and decided to put a positive event on what happened. Now Egerton will need to sit out performing in COCK until he’s recovered from COID, but that won’t take long to happen. Egerton isn’t the only high-profile actor who’s recently had to take a break from a stage production due to COVID, with Hugh Jackman having to sit out preview performances of The Music Man from late December to early January.
COCK, which first premiered back in 2009, was written by Mike Bartlett and follows a man named John who, despite having identified as gay his whole life, questions his sexuality when he develops feelings for a woman. Jonathan Bailey is playing John in this version of the production, and as indicated earlier, Taron Egerton plays M, John’s boyfriend at the time he meets this woman. The current COCK cast also includes Phil Daniels and Jade Anouka, as well as understudies Dominic Holmes, Jessica Whitehurst and John Vernon.
As far as Taron Egerton’s film work goes, we haven’t seen him on screen since he played Elton John in 2019’s Rocketman, with that role eventually netting the actor a Golden Globe Award. However, we did hear Egerton late last year in Sing 2, where he reprised Johnny the gorilla. In addition to his run as Gary “Eggsy” Unwin in the Kingsman movies, Egerton has scored attention in movies like Legend, Eddie the Eagle and Robin Hood.
Looking further ahead into the future, Taron Egerton has already shot another biopic, the upcoming Apple TV+ movie Tetris. He’s playing Henk Rogers, man who introduced the popular video game to the world and co-founded The Tetris Company. Egerton is also primed to reprise Eggsy in Kingsman 3, which, as filmmaker Matthew Vaughn once put it, will serve as “the final chapter” of the relationship between that character and Colin Firth’s Harry Hart. If any other Egerton-led projects are announced, we’ll let you know.
