Barnes was born in London, to Tricia, a relationship therapist, and Thomas Barnes, a professor of psychiatry. He has a younger brother, Jack. His mother, who is Jewish, is originally from South Africa.
Barnes was educated at two independent schools for boys: Homefield Preparatory School in Sutton, Surrey and King's College School in Wimbledon, South West London (where his classmates included the film actor Khalid Abdalla and comedian Tom Basden), followed by Kingston University in Kingston-upon-Thames in South West London, where he studied drama and English literature, and from which he graduated with BA Honours in 2004.
Barnes began his career in musical theatre. As a teenager, he spent a few years as part of the National Youth music theatre, whose alumni also include actors Jude Law and Jamie Bell. At fifteen, Barnes landed his first professional job as a drummer in the West End musical adaptation of Bugsy Malone. He was briefly a singer in the pop boy band Hyrise, which was in the running to represent the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2004 with the song "Leading Me On"; however, they lost out to James Fox and "Hold onto our love". Barnes began working in television in 2006, including a guest appearance on the UK series Doctors. That same year, he joined the ensemble cast of a West End production of The History Boys, in which he starred as the sexually provocative Dakin, a role originally played by Dominic Cooper on stage and in the film The History Boys.
Barnes made his feature film debut as Young Dunstan in 2007's Stardust, directed by Mathew Vaughn and based on the Neil Gaiman novel of the same name. Barnes then starred as a Russian hoodlum named Cobakka in Suzie Halewood's Bigga than Ben, which was released in 2008 in the United Kingdom and other European countries.
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