Tom Hiddleston Interview: His Acting Choices and Roles - Indiewire

Tom I have to say I've been enjoying watching the night manager and by cue your character is Jonathan pine is this combination of vulnerable dangerous sexy incredibly enigmatic we first saw the material what was your response to this character um with first response was was actually about recognition strangely I could see was a very immediate gut instinct of wanting to say yes I wanted to do it wanted to be wanted to play him I can't explain why really I related to his privacy I related to his solitude I related to his courage and his anger and I've an an and actually I found it deeply romantic it's a very romantic story about you know a sort of errant Knight who is looking for a cause I think so I think he's disillusioned and he's disenchanted and I think in in order to deal with that he's simply run away he's buried himself in in in snow and silence literally and figuratively there are so many clues there are so many clues in the novel there are so many clues I hope in the screenplay about his former life as a soldier when when Olivia Coleman's character challenges him about why he's chosen to to take a step towards taking a step toward something very dangerous very dangerous and and she says why and she challenges him on it and he's reluctant to talk about it and it's to my mind the center of it I think a lot of it should remain mysterious a lot of pines motivations some of it is about guilt some of it is about revenge some of it is about a kind of moral rage but so much of it is informed by his history as a soldier as that as a Roper Richard Roeper played by Hugh Laurie deals in trades in standard and chemical weapons selling British and American certified weapons and arms to the highest bidder and has divorced himself from the consequences of the violence from which he profits Jonathan pine was a soldier in the second Iraq war of 2003 he knows what those weapons can do to a body he also knows that the the very premise of that war was was predicated on the existence of the weapons of the worst kind I I think that's a huge part of his Center his anger about that his disillusionment and ultimately the fit the thing I find romantic about it in in the biggest sense is that he is courageous enough to stand up against the face of evil it is the Edmund Burke quotation the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing and pine does something Gianluca ray wrote the book on which space it's been updated by Barr and directed by Susana beer throughout all six episodes hmm so you were working with one set of people yes yes the television saw and that's was that important to you on it never oddly didn't feel like television I think in that regard it felt like a a six hour film the felt like it was a 360 page script we shot it and we boarded it as one it was an episodic we would you know on a Tuesday morning we'd be shooting a scene from Episode five and then on Tuesday afternoon we'd shoot Episode two so the kind of this sort of the command over the material that both Susanna and I had to have was with some substantial if you do it that way it means you're out of sequence yeah of course yeah yeah yeah but it meant that also felt very contained and complete and it had its own integrity because everyone working on it was involved from start to finish there was if you were playing a character like pine in the longest series with different directors and different writers there might be a sense of firm I kind of solitude that you're the only person actually taking this journey but but it never felt like that at all because you're all all the creative people involved were involved for the entire thing and and I think that was I think that's part of why it feels like it's it has an integrity to it I think because Susannah was it's Susanna's film really so you showed this to your sister well I yeah I sort of already made the decision but I did I read them a paragraph from very early in the novel it's I think the opening of chapter 3 and it's it's an astonishing description over Jonathan pine and it goes like this he's described as a graduate of the rainy archipelago of orphanages and foster homes a sometim Army Wolf child with a special unit a itinerant chef Hotel iya volunteer collector of other people's languages perpetual escapee from emotional entanglement self-exiled creature of the night and sailor without a destination and I recognize myself in that and I read it to my sisters and they sit they just said oh my god it's you oh my god that is I can I can put I can slide myself into many of those roles I'm not a hotelier I should say nor am I very good chef but I am and have been a collector of other people's languages I may indeed be a I have been guilty as charged as a sailor without a destination at some point point in my life and it's just a it's a great I don't only speak pidgin French and Spanish and I read Latin and Greek at University so I there is some small modest degree of linguistic ability uh-huh you've been picking roles that are all over yeah where there's a overlap between Jonathan pine and hey William great question I think I think they are both characters which express something I think is true of life and probably and certainly true of me which is that there is an exterior and an interior and I think both characters unconsciously or not have are perceived in the world in the particular way but behind the facade is something much more turbulent and vulnerable so Hank as it was this you know incredibly charismatic performer huge star incredibly witty and and generous of spirit as a performer but actually I think it was hiding a lot of very complex difficult emotions in his own life and and Jonathan pine is is is the face of elegance and duty and modesty and self-discipline but behind that uniform is something very chaotic and and he's on fire inside and it he's on fire with it with a kind of moral anger but it's all covered by his immaculate presentation as a night manager and I it's not just true of those two characters I just think it's true of life I think I think we live in a very scrutinized world all scrutinizing each other all the time and everyone tries to put their best foot forward you're the very essence of identity I find fascinating is that in order to in order to lead constructive and happy lives we we just we try to be the best version of ourselves but but there's a sometimes life doesn't make room for the bumps in the road so those bumps in the road are internalized and people people go through very private turmoil I believe and I think it's useful I think I think I think vulnerability is what people access in cinema and in theater I think that is the power of those media the power of cinema the power of theater can can bring people together by expressing truths about who we are and how we are which are uneasy which are so that so I think the read the things that we as an audience as audiences you and I are drawn to stories which excavate the human condition in all of its complexity and and and fragility and I think honestly that is if if cinema and theater have any power that's the power the power is it is if to say in any hero or heroine or anti hero or villain it's it's a some exploration of ourselves going on there I don't mean for that to sound highfalutin or pretentious I just think when when when there are characters on screen or on stage that we relate to it's because we can see them we can see ourselves in them and that their struggles are our struggles there a character trying to keep a lid on his feelings or her feelings a character trying to control his urges and instincts is all of us trying to do that in our own way and that's what I think so I happen to be a loke speech yes women screaming in my ear that was wonderful to witness it was huge fun I saw I don't think I'll ever have another moment like it it was very rare because it was it was pure theater in a way it was it was a music on a grand scale and it was also yeah if it was a character from the from cinema from movies becoming a becoming a live thing and it was it was so interesting because I'd obviously you never get that you know an actor rarely gets a chance to portray a character they've played on screen on a stage but also a specific kind of stage and I enjoyed it so much because it was unrepeatable and there was no second take and nobody expected it it was completely separate was a surprise for everyone and it was a surprise for me I almost couldn't keep it together actually the sheer intensity of that energy coming towards me was something I had not expected and the fall evening yeah did you keep I remember posting one of the romantic Shakespeare that you read oh really that was that one over very well no they're all these things out there doing the weather on a recent tour yeah but you know you keep it light you have fun with it well I take the work very seriously and I don't take myself seriously my sisters would tell you that I can't help it I think sometimes you know in our world now act as this so there is a demand for context around the work I say we all do these press tours all the time and you just have to have as much fun as you can because there's a limit to how much you can answer the same question you know I mean and I I have no dignity or vanity left so I am I'll do oh you you're after who came you know worked for a long long time you got your first break who got you your first day um it was kenneth branagh if i'm honest um I I had a very fulfilling career in in the theater in London and I was doing some good work I think and at the Donmar Warehouse and and with michael grandage and his company but I'd never had a chance on television or or in film really - I just kept sorted I kept auditioning for big films and for television series and I was you know it just didn't make the grade I would somehow there was always a financial decision that was made to cast established names because that was I think that's just the way the business is structured is that there's always an anxiety about about unknowns what people would have known I mean what is an unknown I don't know but it's what the business talks about about people who haven't who'd haven't don't have a track record essentially and I had no track record in in television or film except I must say the belief and investment of Joana Hagen - into very small films that she made called unrelated an archipelago but Kenneth Branagh was the first person who who made a big he just did a very big thing and he cast me as Loki in Thor which was a huge studio film for Marvel and paramount at the time it was just before Marvel was bought by Disney and it's you know to be to be the the lead villain enough in a film of that size surrounded by huge talent in surrounding Hopkins and Natalie Portman and Rene Russo he cast me in Chris Hemsworth at the same time and we both knew what it meant there's a big thing and I will always be grateful to him for that I do yes I do Ragna Ragnarok yeah Ragnarok I think in Norse mythology is the end not just of the world or even the universe but the end of all things the end of time the end of space the end of matter as we know it it's pretty um it's a big moment oh well yeah bring it again after three years yeah it'd be really interesting cuz he I can't think of another example where as an actor you play the same character when you have these breaks in a way I don't know how it'll be different I just know that it will be has to be I'm three years older I've done some things in between we'll see we'll see and also that character has such room for growth and complexity because he's always walking this tightrope between a kind of latent mischief and malevolence and this capacity for redemption which he has you know you can have some fun with him but the other as tough as Hank Williams was and you haven't been a musician yeah say you've had to nail that southern country thing which you did thank you um some of these other parts have been hard to crimson peak where you're in this gothic unit yeah yeah that was challenging because I fit because I think Thomas Sharpe was was a he was inspired by the archetypes of Gothic romance he was inspired by characters like Rochester and Heathcliff and mr. Darcy to some extent he was inspired by performance but the performances of Peter Cushing he was inspired by all the things that Guillermo loves but I had to make in my own I had to make him real and to have him step out of those pages and feel like he had he had an emotional truth and and an arc I enjoyed it enormously it's just it's a film about freedom in lots of ways Edythe Mia Vasek Oscar's character is setting herself free owning her own conviction as a woman she makes her own decisions she doesn't make her father's decisions and and Tomas in his own way has to set herself free himself free from Lucille and from the past it's a film about kind of cutting ties with the past and and taking possession of your future which i think is very powerful actually very powerful theme I love that movie I wish I wish more people it sort of fell between the cracks of being a certain genre horror yeah some kind of old-fashioned gothic gothic romance yeah lovely it could have gone more in that direction yeah feeling and I think gothic I think I mean Gothic romance became gothic Cora which became horror so there was a that was always going to be a bleed I think I don't know maybe people thought it was Halloween so there'd be more ghosts in it yeah exactly it was marketed that way that's the thing you know and and sometimes people are confused when when they're reintroduced to a genre that they don't even recognize anymore and then only lovers left alive jim jarmusch you until the swinton deliciously that was that was in the ruins of Detroit yes yeah yeah I loved making that actually I love Detroit um such a rare thing in America what to find a piece of America because America is so yeah Aimee terms of the history of the world it's such a young nation and and so America has no ruins in a way and and not to suggest that Detroit is in ruins but it is a city that people have left and thinking people may come back and I must just add I found the people of Detroit incredibly welcoming incredibly warm but but just the history of the place in terms of where it sits in the last century in the history of American culture is so fascinating and of course Jim Jarmusch loves it and and his the character that I played loves it too because it's there's a there's extraordinary beauty to what to look to the landscape because these huge factories and these this sort of monoliths of the auto industry are being reclaimed by Nature so there is a a fascinating thing happening there um and then there's a ruin of another guide in High Rocks yes yes the destruction yeah brand-new modern jobs at least superior office structure I mean yeah the housing structure it's a it's a crazy British movie it's a hit over there I understand it's been it's been it's found its audience in in the UK which is great and it's good because I think it rattled some cages it's it's very much about visit there's a very British sense of humor inside it I think people understand JG Ballard and and this sort of his kind of surrealist social commentary that his books the books are about it's great it's really lovely to see it to see it blew in oh if that's the right word at home and I love making it I loved Bern and the combination of Ben Wheatley and and JG Ballard and Jeremy Thomas's I think was the reason I wanted to do it and the film itself I think is asks some very tough questions of the audience but if you can access it it's it's sort of digging around or something I find interesting again I suppose it goes back to the tension between the exterior and the interior life his ballard is is he takes a slice of middle-class society they're all relatively well well-to-do dentists gynecologists filmmakers actors broadcasters yeah a physiologist a doctor at the teacher in a medical school and all these people who sort of fit into middle-class society but he's he takes those superficial attributes away to show to reveal something darker and more unsettling you know there's that always that what's that we're all three meals away from anarchy or something if you didn't feed people for a day where would we be you know that's exactly yeah you get to all these people trashing so so it must have been fun to sort of realize that that you like by lending yourself to d project like that yeah yeah that's what that's what I was told honestly is is that my attachment was I was the first actor who to be involved and that meant that Jeremy Thomas could take it to distributors and sales agents and and it released a certain portion of the funding not all of it you know but it actually starts to it gets the wheels turning and that's I mean my god what a privilege to be to be in him to be in a place where I could choose something and and that be part of why it gets greenlit it is choosing very well and you've been choosing I mean I think the night manager is is actually you're right that's that's a Tom Hiddleston role right yeah James Bond okay thank you very much okay uh-huh but um but the other the other thing is that you've been making sort of hideous and cracking choices that we're not obvious like it well yeah yeah you know some people criticized you some people didn't think that was the right thing to do but it turned out to be a brilliant yeah it's part of it honest his part of testing myself I always wanted to be the kind of activity that could move the could that could move didn't that didn't stay in one lane you know we like a challenge I like a challenge and I and those actors who have challenged us challenged you know challenge like their own expectations are the ones I think I have admired the most like I think ray Fiennes is a tremendous actor I think I do think he has you know subverted people's expectations of him I think Daniel day-lewis has done it since the moment people became aware of who he was Kenneth Branagh is a huge inspiration and nobody expected into direct Thor and he directed thought you know it's one it's I think if the dream is to keep surprising the audience and also yourself because I think that's where the most interesting work is I think you don't want to stay in one just in one vein so you're keeping things open what you're going to do yeah I mean it's sometimes it's good to the night manager was appealing because it did feel tailor-made in some way it felt very I felt like a good fit instinctively but but then as I as I grow and change and you know who knows what's going to feel like a good fit in five years time what's going to feel like a good fit in ten years time and I think that's how you know that's how any artist really any creative person wants to be is is the form might change the story isn't changed the thing you something happens in your own life and you want to reflect that in the work or you get an opportunity and you know that the reason I wanted to play Hank Williams's is music is a huge part of my life in a way that I don't think anyone particularly knew about and the idea that I could make a film about music and its power to Tran to subtract for meeee and be transcendent in a way to bring people together which is what his music did I think great musicians have that you know occupy a unique place you think of this year David we lost David Bowie and Prince and they they stood they they had they were kind of beacons that stood for possibility and people and found them inspiring simply because they they showed everybody that there was no one way to be you could be many different things and music has that unique access I think and I think Hank had that access so I was I was just excited by that chance in a way

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Id: zz0HHv-Od5k

Length: 29min 5sec (1745 seconds)

Published: Wed May 25 2016