Nicholas Hoult Says It Was 'Horrible' Delivering White Supremacist Speech in “The Order” (Exclusive)

‘The Order’ stars Jude Law and Jurnee Smollett as FBI agents working against Nicholas Hoult’s white supremacist Bob Mathews

Nicholas Hoult is opening up about the "horrible" task of playing a white supremacist in his new movie.

The Order, which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, Sept. 8 following its premiere in Venice, stars the English actor, 34, as real-life American neo-Nazi leader Bob Mathews.

“All the core ideas that Bob Mathews stands for are horrendous,” Hoult tells PEOPLE exclusively. “Obviously, it's horrible.”

But, he adds, “That's always something that as an actor you have to put aside for a moment, to try and be authentic to the moment of the scene.”

Related: Jude Law Says New Film About White Supremacist Group 'Needed to Be Made Now': 'The Relevance Speaks for Itself'

The Order stars Jude Law and Jurnee Smollett as FBI agents in 1983 Idaho trying to prove a string of different crimes are connected to Mathews' radical group of domestic terrorists. Directed by Justin Kurzel (Snowtown) and written by Zach Baylin, the page-to-screen adaptation of 1989 book The Silent Brotherhood costars Tye Sheridan, Alison Oliver and Marc Maron.

“Justin's a fantastic director,” says Hoult. “And he gives such wonderful notes in terms of making things unexpected when you approach difficult scenes and bringing humanity to characters where you wouldn't normally expect it. So that was the wonderful thing.”

To convincingly recreate Mathews’ ugly rhetoric, continues the Mad Max: Fury Road star, he needed Baylin’s “script that was very balanced” and Kurzel’s directing notes “that make you feel like you can focus almost elsewhere in terms of what the character would be feeling in those moments.”

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“It's incredibly meaningful to be able to bring a story like this to life,” Smollett, 37, tells PEOPLE. “Because these [characters] were inspired by real agents, who really did risk their lives to stop the level of domestic terrorism that Bob Mathews tried to create.”

The Order became resonant for Smollett after she interviewed former special agents who worked to counteract white supremacy. “It was so profound to hear over and over again how much these sort of cases were personal for them.”

Related: 'The Great' 's Elle Fanning Admits 'There Was So Much Crying' During Nicholas Hoult's 'Emotional' Goodbye

Law, 51, agrees. The movie’s FBI agent characters all “give something up” for the cause, he says. “There's a familial thread to this piece, or an underbelly, which I think it comes through and makes it more effective, I think.”

Following its premieres in Venice and Telluride, The Order will be in U.S. theaters Dec. 6 courtesy of distributor Vertical.

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