The Essex Serpent | promo #11 | Jenelle Riley interviewed Tom Hiddleston at a Q&A (2022.04.20)

thank you so so much for being here thank you so much for having me and thank you everybody for coming to look at the essex serpent this evening it's a great pleasure to be here thank you thank you janelle i have to be careful because i have cheated and seen an additional episode so i'll try to avoid any good spoilers and the funny thing is like most people would would consider themselves so lucky to have like one great series in a year and you've had two within a year period like could you spread the wealth a little bit let some aren't there other people i think there are more serious than just the two that i've been in only ones i watch yeah okay i'm sure i'm sure that's true um no i've been um i feel so grateful and so um fortunate um the last couple of years of really interesting material loki the the series on disney place and and you're allowed to clap it's okay oh thank you they're you know obviously very different and um but both both very deep actually they're both very um rewarding and enriching in terms of the material they're exploring and i know essex serpent is based on sarah perry's 2016 novel and i know you're very well read did you know the book already i didn't really not that well read um i uh i was aware of it i was actually tangentially aware of it i think it was published in 2016 but it feels as if it's been around for for much longer than that it feels like it's uh because it's conjuring an old world with very resonant very um timeless themes i was finishing loki and we had a week left and um so i read i got sent these scripts and i read them all and i was immediately engaged with it um i loved clyo barnard's work i had followed i met her years ago this is the director the director yeah i've met her years ago at the london film festival she had a film the arbor um which was in which was screening there and i i was uh in a film directed by joanna hogg and we called unrelated and we sort of met and chatted but i'd followed her work through the selfish giant and um dark river just found the combination of of of the story and and her and it just seemed really appealing um different new deep deep there was going into deep water in all ways than one pun intended so yeah that's that's and then i obviously read the book and i found the book the book's brilliant really brilliant now here in america we're familiar with the loch ness monster uh i did not know that the essex serpent was a a real myth if that's a thing and i felt kind of bad about that until i found out that the author didn't know about it either until fairly recently are you familiar with no it was new for me it was an ancient i suppose a local folk tale from essex the easternmost east coast immediately east of london is essex and it's a very ancient part of england uh it's um i think i think if i'm right it's kind of where the ancient when the vikings came over they came across essex and suffolk and it's very very kind of wild marshland and and still is very tidal and so it's not possible to develop any property on it so still parts of it look the same as they've always looked because the tide comes in the tide goes out so um it feels a very i think actually the essex marsh is a where magwitch comes out of in great expectations by charles dickens this very kind of which you know because you're well read it's dick i mean it's charles dickens i don't know how well read that makes me sure everyone's read it right um i'm i can't remember the the beginning of your questions you know i got lost in essex and just if you were familiar with this nip oh no yes so no um but i love the idea of before television before radio when communities were local and therefore they had their own local stories and that there of course there would be these kind of um folk tales that would be told at particular times of the year or um or rituals or you know stories that you told your children or children told to each other they're very rich folk tales are always there for a reason they're there to kind of explain something explain something mysterious or unknown or about something we're afraid of maybe that we create these myths because we're afraid of something or something something we don't understand i just learned this word which you probably know um cryptid cryptid which is like bigfoot or mothman or the loch ness monster it's like okay are you someone who generally believes in those things or you don't put too much thought into it because your character clearly does not again i understand why they are i understand why they exist because we create stories you know collectively we create stories to explain what we don't understand if a child wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks there's a monster under the bed it's it's an ex psychological externalization of some internal anxiety and maybe that's what we do as communities is if there are things we don't understand we create external embodiments of those things in monsters loch ness monsters essex serpents maybe they're symbols of of something wild and untamed and frightening and scary but of course the what sarah perry and anna simon who who's adapted this has done so brilliantly is of course it's about so much more than is there something in the water and of course that's the question but you've got the a period in time late 19th century 1893 charles darwin has just published origin of the species it's going to change the way we understand life and the way we ascribe meaning to our lives and cora played by claire danes is an educated woman she's curious and she and she's motivated by this desire to know but this is all located in a very faithful and god-fearing community and science and faith or or reason and religion are coming into conflict my character will ransom is a vicar a pastor a reverend so of course you've got these sort of themes of sin and and virtue and um and love and fear and and at the time you know when people when people communities were organized around faith that's how they understood i suppose what we would call the unconscious um you know it's so it's it's the serpent this there was a serpent in the garden of eden you know naomi uh played by lily rose aslan dogdu says why does the serpent tempt eve you know it's a sarah perry has chosen this folktale for a reason she's trying to tell a certain kind of story about the conflict between science and or reason and faith and the ideological conflict between the two is how do we from where do we derive meaning in our lives do we depend on on reason and the doctor dr luke garrett is is forging ahead in into life with reason i'm gonna you know i can i can cut open a human body and work like i can you know in the same way we pop the hood of a car i'm gonna see if i can restart the engine he's surging into the future with reason and my character's kind of is holding back in using his faith and then cora comes into the middle of it and said and with her curiosity anyway i'm like well that's too bad because they're here to hear me talk so [Laughter] um i am curious though because you excel so much at playing um what we might call untrustworthy characters or people who kind of keep us guessing and will is so like he wears his heart on his sleeve he's he's so trustworthy he's someone that people can turn to was that part of the appeal of taking the role certainly yes i i really was drawn also to this genuine debate which is which is dramatized in the relationship between cora and will uh about meaning really um and um i think there's a great mystery in you know what lies beneath the surface of the black water estuary is there something in the water is there not something in the water what is in the water becomes a symbol of something that is not yet known and not fully understood for every single character and because that becomes destabilizing for everyone and what i was intrigued by was will ransom is somebody who's calm and collected and his responsibility as a vicar and a reverend is to contain the anxieties of his parishioners um and and calm their superstitions but he doesn't have all the answers um and in a way it felt very resonant for our time you know we've been through such uncertainty and been asked to manage uncertainty and managing uncertainty psychologically is challenging and sometimes if we don't have all the answers our imaginations can rush in to fill the void and often with the things that can distort our sense of reality um and so in a way this this ancient tale felt very contemporary so i was drawn to that i was drawn to this uh this internal shaking up of of of everyone's stability that they think they have things figured out about how they're living their lives and they don't quite i was thinking about that because sorry again but in future episodes um you you really get to see how more this is more timely than ever i mean you're dealing with sort of crowd hysteria and the way that you know rumors can have a physical effect on people yeah um and how also people have completely different beliefs really have to work together in order to make things better and i'm sure that was discussed ad nauseam on set yeah i mean it was it was so um it was so uh we said it was so obvious in a way that we just we discussed it um initially and then of course the work becomes the kind of trying to calibrate the nuance of of who knows what at any given time but yes rumor rumor and and untruth or misshapen truth can spread through a community like wildfire and it can be very dangerous because then it distorts people's sense of their reality and they change their behavior they change their actions and and then suddenly you realize a whole community of people are acting from a place of of fear and misinformation and you know their minds are distressed with imaginings and um it's very destabilizing to see that for sure was it ever challenging because i always think about first of all you're shooting this during a pandemic you're in a place that looks like it can be very isolating maybe i'm wrong maybe it's actually a crazy party town but i can confirm but at least i didn't see it i just expect like the camera to pan six feet and there's like a carnival or something you never know um but you know watching it like i i did sort of wonder and when you're dealing with these big issues you know is it hard are you the kind of actor who takes your work home with you did you did you find it's you know like not the best place to be the best mindset i found it just really stimulating um because it's so psychologically rich um and essex itself the the east coast we were in places like um the tullesbury marshes malden um the cliffs at cardmore a place called north fanbridge and they're very very wild in terms of the landscape where the coast where the land meets the sea oddly enough it was a relief to be outside like it was so windy um and already the science from had filtered down that it was very difficult for the virus to be transmitted outside um and in the win some of the winds we were dealing with dealing with we think kobe is going to have a really hard time here because it was just so windy and it's coming across the north sea um it was pretty chilly sometimes and wet and muddy but i i kind of relish that it can be very evocative as well when you're you know your your boots are in the real marshes and and suddenly the first assistant director is calling time because the tide's coming in and we're all going to get washed away um and um those skies actually have a very rich history of being a great inspiration to painters the turner and constable and um that people went out there to paint because the the way the sun would would set and create these these kind of many many layers of light in the sky so it's a very inspiring place to be and obviously sarah perry's from essex and she clearly knows that she's just her her roots are so embedded in that soil and so yes we were in a bubble we were in our own kind of um coastal bubble um with all the wind inside it and the mud and the rain but uh it felt it didn't feel isolating it's you know like i think like any we had a great a great crew um of wonderful people um and who are very committed and capable and yeah we sort of went for it so in that scene we saw tonight when you're wrestling with the sheep in the mud that's not acting that's just you you genuinely frustrated well there is a little bit of acting involved i'd say but only because the sheep was not a real sheep what no it was so i was having to kind of puppeteer the sheep as well as trying to rescue the sheep that no i'm see i'm genuinely impressed i don't know have you seen annette i have seen in there okay so cause i think it's not quite there it's not quite yeah no because i think about how you're really performing for two people yes because you have to you're imbuing yeah an object with this fascinates me i really thought it was a real sheep well done well there was there were real sheep on the on the on the edge of the water but actually it was very there was just we talked there was i think conversations about it but long before my involvement and i think that any sheep would be too distressed in that environment and the water and i'm not sure the quality of the water and and um so yeah there was a a kind of i guess it was a structure of the sort of internal skeleton was just made of wires and then wrapped in this coat of real wool and then i just got into the marsh and wrestled it it's amazing we tried to rescue it rather but yeah it was a long it was it was strangely heavy it was a very heavy and i at the end of the day were wow this has been a workout you know rescuing this this sheet it's such an amazing way for those two characters to meet um because he's distracted and i think in the book it just she it's all from her point of view and and she sees this man who sort of looks like he's part of the land he's just covered in water and mud and you can't really tell the difference between where the marshes end and he begins and he's kind of grunting and he's sort of pre man he's just making noises and then he's dismissive and and very cold um because he can see that she's obviously not from around you know she's a down from london you know he's already starting to get frustrated with this curiosity about the serpent because he knows you know it's all very well you coming down from london with your educated ideas but there are people here who are very afraid and if you start saying this essex serpent is real then their lives are going to be very unhappy so he kind of dismisses her and then of course a beginner a kind of connection through their intellectual debate um moving on from the in inanimate co-stars i want to talk about the cast in this show because it's just but that's something that that seems to go wherever you go you always seem to be a part of these really amazing ensembles i'm lucky i was so fortunate i mean claire was claire danes was was involved before i was um and she was is wonderful just such commitment such um she's so bright and so spirited and you know she was our fearless leader on this it's it's uh cora is absolutely the the center of the story she was um also really game and you know quick to laugh some of the weather and the physical extremity was you have to be you know you have to it's good if you can if you can uh find a way of being in those situations and and and muddling on and she's so good at that but has an amazing capacity for a icora goes on this extraordinary journey and the delicacy and sensitivity with which she depicts that is really really remarkable and frank delaine who plays dr garrett who i think is a revelation he's got such energy and he's so mischievous and um playful and you can feel his growing affection for korra but also his ambition as a young man he's trying to make his way in the world and he's correct about certain things you know um no one's performed heart surgery yet but they will be able to and and he's in his own way he's changing the world hayley squires who's fantastic just every time she's just the most truthful performer she just is the truth whenever you point a camera at her and martha is a is a really interesting part because you know she's there helping uh cora and her son frankie but she's also got uh as i think you you'll see as the series the story unfolds she is read karl marx and she knows change is coming and she's got her own political ambitions and so it's really interesting that she's in there she's kind of embedded or been folded into the world of enact this aristocratic widow but she's also got her own completely um motivated story jamail westman as spencer who's just brilliant um played hamilton in london as long as i think as long as the run wow really ran yeah who's plays charles spencer who's dr dr garrett's um confidante and friend um and there's a wonderful story with him and martha um and clemos poezi who plays stella uh will's wife and she's um stella plays a hugely important i think actually the whole story is about stella in a way the essex serpent could be described as a gothic romance in some ways it's about love and fear and if and maybe the serpent represents fear but the story is also about love and and stella's love in a way is i think the most some of the most transformative or most profound love that there is again the serpent fostela represents something unknown something that is deep that is not yet known i don't want to spoil anything but she was terrific working with clematis was fantastic and some young actors as well lizzy lily rose aslan dogdy playing naomi um dixie um eggerix playing um joe my daughter who am i missing i'm i must be missing people there are so many great actors in this truly the sheep we talked about the she was great michael gibson who plays um uh evansford who is uh the other religious figure in the church um the curate who's much more um he's much more fundamentalist in his christian doctrine and as as the superstition starts to take hold um and talk of the devil you know you see i think in this episode you see evansville starting to get very high church um and he and will start to disagree about how to manage the collective anxiety and he's brilliant so get all gets very kind of like the crucible that was a brilliant expertise to continue watching the show which by the way premieres on may 13th friday the 13th yes i don't know if that was intentional or not that's above my station it's up to apple but that is when the first two episodes will air again congratulations on another great show thank you janelle thank you thank you so much for coming thank you

Channel: Zsuzsanna Uhlik

Views: 25,875

Keywords: Tom Hiddleston, Claire Danes, The Essex Serpent, Apple TV+, 2022 May, new series, LOKI Trailer, Disney+, lokiofficial, hiddleston interview, hiddleston shakespeare, hiddleston loki, tom hiddleston loki, tom hiddleston, tom hiddleston interview, tom hiddleston reading, tom hiddleston quoting shakespeare, tom hiddleston reading poetry, tom hiddleston reading shakespeare, hiddleston tom, tom hiddleston voice, tom hiddleston youtube channel, hiddleston 2020

Id: vxL5C7WITd8

Length: 21min 22sec (1282 seconds)

Published: Mon May 09 2022