Raphael Coleman’s mother Liz Jensen has said she is “heartbroken” and ‘living every parent’s worst nightmare’ after the former child star died at the age of 25.
Coleman, who played Eric Brown in the 2005 film Nanny McPhee opposite Emma Thompson, died on Friday.
Jensen, a novelist, said that the loss is “almost too much to bear” and that her family “are in despair but determined to honour his memory and ambitions.”
“We are heartbroken but so proud of him and his work to protect our Heaven on Earth,” she said in a statement, as reported in The Sun.
“He inspired so many people and was so loved. He was beautiful and wise and it’s hard to imagine how life will continue. But it must and will – and he’d want that. We were so lucky to have him, he brought such joy.
“It’s every parent’s worst nightmare.”
Coleman was an activist for Extinction Rebellion and ran the organisation’s social media accounts.
After his role in Nanny McPhee, Coleman went on to star in the 2009 horror film It’s Alive and won best young actor at the British Independent Film Festival in 2010.
In a tribute shared on Facebook, his stepfather Carsten Jensen said that he “collapsed without prior health problems.”
“I guess there’s nothing that makes you see death as unfair and meaningless as when a young person dies,” he wrote. “It’s life itself that’s sabotaged.”
Extinction Rebellion also paid tribute, describing him as a “bright burning soul” and praising him for “[fighting] hard for the cause, especially for Indigenous rights.”
