Yet he was prepared to struggle past every social, financial and intellectual obstacle that stood between his schoolboy realities and grandiose dreams.
He looked more like a cross between earnest schoolboy and reclusive professor, and never seemed quite ready to take off his jacket.
Man and Boy charts the growth of an unlikely friendship in post-war London between a schoolboy, not coincidentally called Michael, and the artist Kurt Schwitters, one of the founders of Dada, who was living in the capital as a refugee.
While the original print series centred on the titular team of costumed crime-fighters, the movie seems to be a quirkier piece about the relationship between bright schoolboy inventor Hiro and his machine pal Baymax, a sort of "How to Train Your Robot" if you like.
It showed how a row between two schoolboys on a sunny afternoon escalated into murder.
The real divide is now between public schoolboys and those educated in the state sector, though this time they appear to have upset an Etonian.
In his wildly acclaimed stand-up shows, he comes over like a cross between a perpetual schoolboy and an impossibly wise mystic.
Matt follows, encouraged by his two geeky, sex-crazed sidekicks (Mr. Marquette and Mr. Dano), and a tug-of-war over Danielle ensues between pornographer and schoolboy.
They are opposite poles for club and country in some respects, yet there is a bond between the public schoolboy and a team-mate with a grittier kind of education.
