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'Nanny McPhee' child star Raphael Coleman dead at 25

The one-time actor had become an activist in the fight against climate change.

Raphael Coleman, child star of the 2005 film "Nanny McPhee" who dedicated his adult life to being an activist against climate change, died last Friday at the age of 25.

Coleman's stepfather, Carsten Jensen, posted on Facebook that Coleman collapsed and died during a run. Jensen said Coleman had no prior health problems. The cause of death has not yet been reported.

"Who was raph?" Jensen wrote. "As a child, he was old-wise, extremely literate and loved to lecture adults with his always astonishing knowledge. He was a child actor in the popular British Comedy Nanny Mcphee, where he played himself with great talent, a little redhead boy who was always mixing explosive chemical ingredients. He had several roles, was rewarded and could have chosen a career as an actor. But he wanted to be a scientist, not to blow up something, as his figure in Nanny Mcphee, but to save the planet."

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Coleman, who also went by the name Iggy Fox, joined the British climate activist group Extinction Rebellion.

"Rest in peace my beloved son Raphael Coleman, aka Iggy Fox," wrote Liz Jenzen, Coleman's mother, 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."

Liz Jensen included a link to an essay Coleman wrote titled, "This Is Why I Rebel."

"On August 13th, six of us were arrested at London’s Brazilian Embassy for taking non-violent direct action to highlight an ecological and human rights emergency," Coleman wrote as Fox. "We did it as two thousand Indigenous women marched on Brasilia to defend their lives and lands, and three days after the Dias do Fogo, when thousands of fires were lit to clear deforested land in the Amazon."

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