The young actor playing Link in the live-action Legend of Zelda movie couldn't actually play the game that revitalised the franchise when it came out — he was eight years old and didn't own a Nintendo Switch.

Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, now 16, revealed in an exclusive interview with GamesRadar+ that he watched playthroughs of Breath of the Wild online instead of playing it himself when the game launched in 2017. "It might show my age," he told the outlet.

The confession is charming precisely because of who Ainsworth is now: the lead of one of the most anticipated video game film adaptations in years, directed by Wes Ball and filmed almost entirely in New Zealand. The actor described shooting the movie as "an awesome thing to shoot" in the same GamesRadar+ interview, which Eurogamer credited as the original source on 28 July 2026.

Ainsworth is no stranger to prestige projects. He is best known for portraying Miles in The Haunting of Bly Manor, and is set to appear as Daeron Targaryen in House of the Dragon Season 3, according to Eurogamer.

Nintendo's legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto personally announced Ainsworth's casting as Link and Bo Bragason as Princess Zelda via a social media post on 28 July 2025. Bragason, cast as Princess Zelda, already had a taste of video game film work — she appeared in a Final Fantasy film at roughly 12 years old, as GamesRadar+ reported.

Filming on the Zelda movie has been under way since at least November 2025, when Nintendo unveiled a first look at Link and Zelda in costume after a leaked set video circulated online. The image gave fans their first official glimpse of the characters brought to life.

For a franchise that has sold over 140 million copies across its main entries, handing the lead role to an actor who experienced one of its most beloved games through YouTube rather than a controller is a small detail with a lot of warmth to it. Ainsworth may not have played Breath of the Wild at launch, but he is now the person bringing its hero to the screen.