Actor and dancer Layton Williams has become a first-time winner at the 2025 Olivier Awards, almost two decades on from his West End debut aged 13.
Williams won the Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical accolade at the Olivier Awards 2025 last night (6 April) for his role in the hilarious new jukebox musical, Titaníque.
Titaníque also won the Best Entertainment or Comedy Play at the 2025 Oliviers.
The musical is a parody of the 1997 James Cameron film Titanic told from the perspective of Celine Dion, whose Titanic theme song “My Heart Will Go On” became one of the best-selling songs of all time.
It follows Dion as she crashes a Titanic museum tour to claim that she was on the Titantic and somehow managed to survive its sinking. The show sees her explain the truth behind what happened to Jack, Rose, and some of the Titanic’s other iconic characters.
Layton Williams appears in the year’s very best role, playing the iceberg that sank the ship.
After bagging his award, he quipped to the audience at London’s Royal Albert Hall: “I just won an Olivier for playing an iceberg.”
The actor managed to beat off competition from Mean Girls The Musical star Tom Xander, Hello, Dolly! star Andy Nyman, and Fiddler on the Roof’s Raphael Papo to take the award home.
According to folk at home, it was a very worthy win, with one fan writing on social media: “The moment I saw @LaytonWilliams in Titaníque I turned to my girlfriend and said ‘I think he could win the Olivier for this’ and I bloody called it and it’s bloody deserved.”
Though it’s his first ever Olivier, earlier this year he managed to win a WhatsOnStage award for his role as Emcee in Cabaret in the West End.
Layton Williams took on his first ever stage role aged 13, playing the eponymous Billy Elliot in the West End musical between 2007 and 2008.
He has since starred in a number of high-profile theatre productions, most notably playing Jamie in queer musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, both in the West End and internationally, between 2019 and 2022.
The star has also moved over to screen, playing Stephen Carmichael in BBC sitcom Bad Education on and off since 2012, narrating BBC queer dating shows I Kissed A Boy and I Kissed A Girl, and guest-starring in Billie Piper’s comedy show, I Hate Suzie.
In 2023, he made it all the way to the finale of Strictly Come Dancing, competing in a same-sex couple with his dancing professional, Nikita Kuzmin.
Ahead of winning his big award, Williams appeared on the Olivier Awards 2025 red carpet in an eye-catching black suit and tie, complete with a very shady, very wide-brimmed Grace Jones-level hat, and a face beat for the musical theatre Gods.
See the full list of Olivier Awards 2025 winners now.
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