Sebastian Croft's New Chapter as "Bash": Chasing the "Pop Boy" Dream While Learning to Play Himself

On screen he's Sebastian Croft, but when it comes to writing songs and releasing singles, he wants to be Bash. "Sebastian feels too formal—it sounds like an actor's name," he says. "Bash is what my mum, my friends, and my partner call me. It's the most intimate version of me." That split is the story in itself: on one side is Sebastian, the actor who's been working for 17 years, who played young Ned Stark (the role portrayed as an adult by Sean Bean) in Game of Thrones, and the closeted school bully Ben Hope in season two of Heartstopper; on the other side is Bash, the 24-year-old newcomer about to release his first EP, who describes himself as an "acoustic-leaning singer-songwriter."

His ambition is stated plainly. "What matters to me is writing pop songs that work for a mainstream audience but come from a queer perspective," he says. He's noticed there are plenty of "pop girls" doing interesting things right now—he name-checks Sabrina Carpenter, Zara Larsson, and Charli XCX—but male artists of the same generation, especially straight male artists, tend not to call themselves "pop stars." Instead they say they make country or rap. "I think there's something kind of interesting about wanting to be a pop girl," he says, even though he's well aware he can't actually be one—not just because of gender, but because his music leans a bit more indie at its core.

His debut single "Tokyo," released last November, uses gently plucked guitar chords to chronicle a messy relationship; his forthcoming debut EP, The Great Forever, wraps those post-breakup confessions in a glossier pop sheen. "I wanted to ask: what would happen if I held myself to the standard of a pop girl?" he says. "That could create an interesting tension with the kind of acoustic, singer-songwriter music I naturally make." His new single "Pretty People," out today alongside a tightly choreographed music video, is being read as the official kickoff of his "pop boy" era. This summer he opened for Lewis Capaldi at Hyde Park in London.

This conversation takes place in a conference room at his PR agency's offices in central London, with a publicist tapping away on a laptop nearby. At the time of the interview, he's about to face another high-visibility moment in his career—the premiere of BBC's The Celebrity Traitors 2026, which reportedly drew nearly nine million viewers. Last year's inaugural season was one of the rare shows to become a genuine national talking point for the BBC, and this year's cast of competitors includes Michael Sheen, Little Mix's Leigh-Anne Pinnock, and The Last of Us' Bella Ramsey. He could end up "murdered" out of the game by his own friends, like Paloma Faith was, or tripped up right before the finish line, like Nick Mohammed.

"I think what drew me to the show is that I get to just be myself, without playing a character," he says. "And honestly, I love the game itself—for my birthday last year I went to The Traitors: Live Experience with friends." He won't say whether that experience gave him an edge on the show—to some extent, even if it did, the BBC probably wouldn't let him say so anyway—but you can tell he approached the game without trying to carefully manage his image. "I used to really want to build this image of myself as a 'serious actor,'" he says. "But what actually feels freeing is just doing the things that genuinely excite you—and letting other people decide what that means."

While attending primary school in Oxford, he was "super dyslexic" and "athletically hopeless," but full of energy, so his parents enrolled him in weekend drama classes. At age nine, he landed the lead role in an open casting call for the West End production of Oliver!—rotating in the part with three other child actors, under director and BAFTA nominee Rupert Goold—and went on to appear in West End productions of Les Misérables and Matilda. At fourteen he flew to Belfast to film Game of Thrones, and walking onto the Winterfell set he saw around 200 extras, with a massive ship set built in the soundstage next door—"the scale of it was absurd." But because of the NDA, he couldn't even tell his schoolmates about any of it.

Six years later, he played closeted bully Ben Hope in Heartstopper, which became the most high-profile role of his adult career. "When we were filming season one I wasn't fully out yet, and I was really scared this show would invite everyone to speculate about my sexuality," he says. His co-star Kit Connor, about half a year after the show premiered in 2022, publicly said he felt "forced" to come out as bisexual due to relentless online speculation. Croft's own experience was comparatively smoother: "I was really scared of how coming out as an actor might affect my career," he says, "but I later realized that LGBTQ+ visibility was actually the most meaningful part of the whole Heartstopper experience." In 2023, he co-founded the online community Queer Was Always Here with actor Connor Jessup, raising funds for LGBTQIA+ refugees and displaced people; their "Queer Boy" charity T-shirts were a hit at multiple Pride events this summer.

Recently he's also appeared in the 2024 teen romantic comedy How To Date Billy Walsh and last year's period drama Dope Girls. As for the future, he's not choosing between acting and music: "I hope to get back into film someday, but I also want acting and music to be in conversation with each other," he says. "I've been acting for 17 years, and I'm only now putting out my first EP. So right now, music is what I'm really focused on."

Bash Croft's new single "Pretty People" is out now; new episodes of The Celebrity Traitors are available to stream on BBC One and iPlayer.