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Nanny McPhee star Raphaël Coleman has died, aged 25.
The former child actor, who played Eric Brown in the film opposite Emma Thompson, passed away on Friday, his mum, Liz Jensen, confirmed on social media.
In more recent years, Coleman had stopped acting and devoted his life to activism, becoming a member of the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion.
“Rest in peace my beloved son Raphael Coleman, aka Iggy Fox,” his mother wrote on Twitter.
“He died doing what he loved, working for the noblest cause of all.
“His family could not be prouder. Let’s celebrate all he achieved in his short life and cherish his legacy.”
Rest in peace my beloved son Raphael Coleman, aka Iggy Fox. He died doing what he loved, working for the noblest cause of all. His family could not be prouder. Let’s celebrate all he achieved in his short life and cherish his legacy https://t.co/qFRKPT7rRG
— Liz Jensen (@LizJensenWriter) February 7, 2020
In a Facebook post, his stepdad Carsten Jensen said he “collapsed without prior health problems”.
He began: “I guess there’s nothing that makes you see death as unfair and meaningless as when a young person dies.”
“It’s life itself that’s sabotaged. It just happened to my wife, Liz, whose youngest son, Raph of only 25, died last Friday.
#ExtinctionRebellion’s October Uprising, Trafalgar Square. RIP Iggy Fox, aka Raphael Coleman. He knew that we are all already in Heaven, right here on Earth. pic.twitter.com/V2cgJLneyH
— Liz Jensen (@LizJensenWriter) February 8, 2020
“He collapsed without prior health problems in the middle of a trip and could not be restored. I got to know Raph when he was six years old, and we were so close.”
He continued: “I will never forget you, we say in a farewell greeting to the dead.
“But when it’s your own child, it’s your genes, your whole body, something greater than the word I who forever refuse to accept the judgment of death.
“Raph wasn’t my child, even though I was close to him. But I can feel it myself. I see it in his mother’s eyes, and I hear it in her voice, the irreversible loss of the most precious thing in life.”
Jensen said Coleman ran Extinction Rebellion’s social media accounts, praising him for his work with the group.
“Raph was one of the first and most active members. Under the name Iggy Fox, he controlled the group’s use of social media, spoke at demonstrations, and was arrested again and again,” he continued.
“By April, he should have been in court accused of painting the Brazilian Embassy with red when the amazon jungle was standing in flames. He didn’t want a lawyer, but he wrote himself on his defense court when he died.
AT DØ UNGDer er vel ikke noget, der får en til at opleve døden som så uretfærdig og meningsløs, som når et ungt…
Posted by Carsten Jensen on Saturday, February 8, 2020
“When I think of Raph, I see something that will never die, a blunt of eternity, a light beam that lives forever in young people.
“We believe that it is us, the older generations who have something to give the young people. We believe that we are the ones who pass the baton of life to them. But I think it’s the other way around.
“The young people remind us why we’re alive. They remind us of the purpose of life that this is the gift we must not in distraction until we have unpacked it.”
He ended the tribute by adding: “Thank you, Raph.”
Coleman first came to fame back in 2005, starring in Nanny McPhee alongside Emma Thompson, Colin Firth and Thomas Brodie-Sangster.
He also starred in It’s Alive, The Fourth Kind and Edward’s Turmoil, and won the best young actor at the British Independent Film Festival in 2010.
Jensen explained he spent a year in a jungle in Costa Rica, and six months in Indonesia, before joining Extinction Rebellion.
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