The Menu 's Nicholas Hoult Wouldn't Call Himself a Foodie: 'I'm a Trash Can, I Eat Anything'

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Nicholas Hoult may play the ultimate foodie in the dark new satire The Menu — but he wouldn't exactly call himself one.

In fact, the 32-year-old actor is pretty indiscriminate when it comes to his palette. "I'm a trash can, I eat anything and everything," he tells PEOPLE in this week's issue. "(I'm) not picky at all. Although I think within the last 12 hours, I have become obsessed with baking."

Hoult, who splits his time between London (where he's finishing up filming season 3 of Hulu's The Great) and Los Angeles, has found comfort in the kitchen, even whipping up "a Japanese sweet bread and a cinnamon crunch loaf" in the same day.

"I do quite enjoy cooking when I'm not working," he says. "When I'm working, I just don't cook at all basically, and then when I get time off I like to putter around in the kitchen. I'm not very good, but I like to do it."

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Hoult doesn't exactly get high culinary marks in The Menu (in theaters this weekend), a twisted fine-dining tale that pits the guests of a Michelin-starred restaurant against its exacting chef (Ralph Fiennes). In one scene his "pathological" character, who invites an unsuspecting date (Anya Taylor-Joy) for a fraught meal, is even found sweating in the restaurant's kitchen while challenged to properly baste lamb under the watchful eyes of 20 white-coated cooks.

But at home, the X-Men franchise veteran found satisfaction cooking for perhaps the most discerning critic of all: his 4-year-old son with model Bryana Holly.

"You know what? You get honest, instant feedback from a 4-year-old. He will turn straight around, and he's like, 'This isn't very good, Dad,' " Hoult says, laughing. "But then when you do get it right and you cook something great, you get a big thumbs-up. It's a great age."

20th Century Studios

Hoult's on-screen character is obsessed with documenting lavish meals, but whipping out an iPhone to photograph delectable dishes is not something Hoult is prone to. "Do you ever really look back at those (food) photos?" he asks. "It's like when people spend like 10 minutes recording at a concert, and you're like, 'Really? You're actually going to watch that whole thing back with the terrible sound on of your phone?' Probably not, right?"

Currently, his attention is on The Great's Peter III, who spent last season navigating a coup enacted by Catherine the Great (Elle Fanning).

"There's such a shorthand" between he and Fanning on set — though Hoult admits it can be a battle keeping a straight face while depicting their characters' often monstrous antics. "I break all the time!" he says. "I mean Elle (does too), but Peter is just always doing such outrageous things. There was this scene that we were doing a couple of months back, and I couldn't stop giggling."

The Menu arrives in theaters on Friday.