Tom Hiddleston - Times Talks - Crimson Peak

good evening everyone i'm carol day of the new york times and i'm so happy to welcome you tonight even though unfortunately a Guillermo de toro wasn't able to be with us to talk about his new film crimson peak one of the stars of the film's is here and he is just we're so grateful to him for pitching in at the last minute he's well known around the world for his compelling characters on stage and screen including Loki in the Thor films on London's West End where he won the Laurence Olivier Award on the BBC and PBS where he played Henry the fourth and Henry the fifth opposite of who's who of British acting talent and this year he's in of course crimson peak he's in the film high-rise and he has a new film that's coming up called I saw the light in which he plays Hank Williams you'll hear much more about him from our moderator she's a cultural reporter on the cultural desk of the New York Times where she writes for the arts pages and she's interviewed everyone from punk bands to Tina Fey to Ghostface Killah recently well this week she visited Guillermo and and did a film of his bleak house which is where he writes and he has all his creepy characters and wax figures so she can tell you a little bit about that as can our guests so please join me in welcoming milena rising and our very special guest Tom Hiddleston hi everybody thank you so much for joining us and for sticking around to see Tom who was just telling me backstage that he was literally on the treadmill when he got the call - yeah tonight so thank you I'm sorry I need to make a few apologies I first of all I apologize that I'm not Mexican and that I'm not a visionary cinematic genius and all the things I'm sure you expected when you bought tickets to see this but yes I was on the treadmill I next week I go off a start Scylla Island which is a new King Kong film and a lot of running about in the jungle so I thought I'd practice the running about anyway right here home well we're so glad that you could make it you are not Guillermo but I think you'll do just fine okay we we will have some time to chat and then we'll have a couple of minutes for some audience Q&A and there'll be some mics set up for you guys so everybody can hear you so I want to start by talking about us as you guys heard of the intro I had a chance a little while ago to go visit with Guillermo at his house Bleak House where he keeps all kinds of crazy monsters and Frankenstein's and you have not seen that you have not experienced no I've never been I really want to go it so I mean he talks about it like it's some his own private Disneyland it's you know it's it sounds extraordinary and I get a sense of what it's like just from working with him for four or five months and and seeing his extraordinary passion for for all of his great loves for you know he's someone who finds beauty in the shadows you know and he loves gothic material he's such a collector of all that stuff so yeah one day I hope an invitation will be in the mail yeah well he's what what's fascinating about him is that he surrounds himself with all this creepy stuff and we have a little clip from from That visit do you guys want to see inside inside the house alright can we play that it's Frankenstein your favorite monster Frankenstein's creature is to me the most moving and beautiful monster and it's an amazing piece of design the house is a little bit of a library it's two houses actually one next to each other right here and brought here and we designed so many movies here and I'm gonna show you a little curiosity fast man from Malaysia that I bought when I was a teenager in New York and we ended up using it of the basis for the inspector van siren not everyone will agree that it was huge for special attention for me but you're never scared in these houses I never never never ever ever scared yeah mostly cows so what I found fascinating is he is surrounded by all these creepy crawlies and monsters and yet he himself is this delightful and very sweet man and it seems unfathomable that he would come out that all that kind of stuff would come out of his imagination was that your experience and working yeah it's amazing when you meet him he's so he is such a warm generous good-natured sweet sensitive man you know he and being around all set with him as a very he's a very light it's a very light and lighthearted set to be on but he I think he fight he's on he's so wise that he understands that you know all of our lives are a balance of the light and the dark and I think he understands the place of the darker aspects of our nature in our world that make for interesting stories to tell in film as a reflection of its a safe place to reflect those those thoughts feelings and things that happen but it's I found I genuinely found his wisdom extraordinary extraordinary to be around and crimson peak for him is is is he's poured his heart into it it's a it's a love song to everything he admires to the genre of Gothic romance in literature and in cinema to Hammer horror to gothic fiction like the Bronte sisters and the mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe and the Horace Walpole and all of this stuff that he he dearly loves but that stuff was not necessarily familiar to you right you were not you didn't come up as a Gothic romance fan right not particularly it's I mean I was always familiar with the archetypes I think it's impossible to grow up in England and not be understanding understanding that the trajectory of Gothic romance is that there is always a young pure hearted innocent heroine who is drawn towards a a dark stranger with a mysterious past and and and and it's a she falls in love perhaps what she's drawn by her sexuality towards him and then and he always has a crumbling mansion on the hill and you think they'd know better but there's you know these were archetypes that actually at the time were incredibly revolutionary you know this was a deeply repressed time and especially things like you know the sexuality of young women and and and the darker aspects of of our imagination were never discussed it was not societally appropriate and so Gothic romance was a genre that that actually was predominantly came from women and was a way of exploring those themes that the how love is a force of change and is chaotic often dangerous and that it can empower you into situations which are terrifying and the very first I don't know I didn't know this until until Guillermo pointed me towards it but the very first gothic novel that is sort of acknowledged as a romances is the mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe and it was the first time in fiction that a writer had used the supernatural or explained the supernatural in terms of unprocessed emotional trauma and up until this point if you talked about ghosts you were talking about some they were emblems of a judeo-christian conception Heaven Hell demons that kind of thing and Radcliffe was explaining or introducing ghosts as the way we think of it now which is they are emotions trapped in time and then it gets taken on and so it was in a way it was an education for me the research for this film is he one of those directors that starts out by giving you a reading list and well I I walked into I asked for one so I walked into it but I thought I always find that helps me to create her I want to sync up with the director's vision every time I go to work I want to understand what they're trying to what that the story they're trying to tell and how they're trying to tell it and when I first read the script I could understand that crimson peak was he was playing with his archetypes you know and I could see the inspiration of Lord Rochester and mr. Darcy and Sidney Oman Tony in in my character Thomas Sharpe but then I could see and I don't wanna spoil things but I could see how he was he plays with your expectations you expect each character to be one thing and they those expectations are confounded and subversive in a fascinating way and of course one of the things that he's known for is the visuals and this is this movie is no exception when we talked before you said that the the house is almost a character in the film and it has its own backstory in fact DMO told me he wrote a backstory for the house that he gave you yeah as a character study the house is amazing it's over it is a principal character and it harbors secrets in the same way that human beings Harbor secrets the house the house is in if the house were a human being it would need a thirty years of therapy wait on that note let's let's watch the clip for weekend house goodness how many rooms are there I don't know would you like to count them what do you think does it look the part it does although it's even colder inside than out I know it's a disgrace we tried to maintain the house as best we can but with the cold and the rain it's impossible to stop the damp and erosion under the mines right below well the wood is rotting and the house is sinking that's just your average workday yeah yeah like that yeah did you have time to explore all these nooks and crannies that he built in that had little secrets in them it was actually an amazing day I was in the middle of a costume fitting with our costume designer Kate Hawley whose work in this film is absolutely dazzling and I was wearing some of those clothes it was my first fitting or my second fitting in and Guillermo came rushing in saying this they have finished the set you have to come and have a look and so I I ran over the you know we were started in Toronto and I ran across the the lot and opened the door of you know what would be any other soundstage in North America and it was like entering a magical world just it was a fully realized fully imagined built on three storeys he could run up and down the stairs the elevator worked you know that that the clay that comes through the floorboards was there it was real it was extraordinary thing and it was felt felt very childlike actually it felt like the experience of a child when you when somebody takes you through an experience like that and you think you're disappearing into a fantasy was incredible did you bring any visitors on set and just freak them the hell no no I didn't I should have opportunity so you said you when you approach a role you really dive in and do a lot of research in this case your character is a kind of inventor and did you study you know 19th century early 20th century engineering well I sort of I hated about I would make an appalling engineer but I the reason I do it is is because I need I feel always feel I need to create a an imaginative context which is very rigorously built and then I can be free in it or not so that's a sort of that's why I do the research is so that I can I understand the world the director is creating and then once I inhabit it I can be free with my instinct and try not because acting is really about instinct and feeling it's not about intellect but you can't just be ringing sweetly because it's not it's a very there's a very rigorously controlled environment so I need to it's almost like I need to put cameras ideas on my own wallpaper and then and then move in and the engineering stuff I I did do a lot of work it was a fascinating time 1901 the world was changing and it was the middle of the Industrial Revolution and you think the beginning of the last century the scale of what was about to happen the number of things that you know everything was you'd be thinking with him but in about 16 years penicillin arrives and then and you have the First World War and then you're and then you're into the 30s and what at late 20s and the Wall Street Crash in America and then the rise of Nazism a new thing you brought all of early 20th century but it's like it's amazing at what I bought it's amazing that Guillermo has chosen this time to set it is it's it's at the cusp of the world being a completely different place and and it is about a battle between the past and the future and Edith Cushing played by mia wasikowska is the future she's taken our own destiny into her own hands she won't allow her future to be controlled by anybody she's going to make her own future and Thomas Sharpe my character and his formidable sister played by Jessica Chastain they are the past they are the old world and and they are weighed down by the secrets of the past haunted by them literally this is another character in a long litany that you've played that isn't necessarily you know he's the hero but he's not necessarily a good guy do you gravitate towards people like Guillermo does who enjoy who flourish in the shadows I think I'm just always loved playing complicated people because I think people are complicated and I there's part of the kind of I enjoy the sort of a mature psychological investigation if you like I like trying to find the common humanity in characters which are dangerous or unsettling and there's a return for Thomas Sharpe in the film which I found very moving in the script you know he's someone who presents himself with a an external charisma elegance and a sophistication and behind that is a lot of guilt and shame and then beneath that is a is a vulnerability which Mia he leadeth me as character taps into and out of the vulnerability he discovers a new kind of courage which I found very I just found it very moving but I won't reveal what that is soon are you one of the actors one of those kind of actors it looks for for parts of yourself in characters or do you separate that as much as possible it's important to distinguish that I haven't done any of the things that yeah it's a yes he's a mixed up cat but I do I think it's important to approach approach characters with compassion and the enemy of truthful acting is to sit in judgment on your character you cannot put them in a tribunal and try them for their for their sins you know for their crimes you have to find you have to love them in spite of their flaws and I love that about acting is it's a such an act you try to find an explanation for their failings and to to play them honestly with compassion so yeah it was that an approach that you learned in in acting school probably yeah if I traced it back yes I think so I think I was taught that there's a vibe Ayers if you don't if you judge less sympathetic characters then then there's a vanity at work there there's a sort of that was the way my acting teacher says it's not your it's it's not your duty to judge them your duty is to understand them and to and to represent them and that they exist in the story for a reason you know all the great stories that we that we know and love wouldn't exist without without bad guys without you know without complex characters or villains you know that's the whole point of storytelling I think so do you think of Loki is a real bad guy or do you find something lovable on him - Loki is I mean there's the world domination aspect of it I think which is probably it's probably unsavory let's say you know it's sort of the tyrannical fascist to try and find the reasons for that I went to trying to find what is the the where is the emptiness in him that needs that status and that was in the very first thought film you know myself and Kenneth Branagh and Chris Hemsworth and and Sir Anthony Hopkins talked about what that was that there was his sort of firm he is you know he's someone who was left and abandoned to die as an infant and has always felt like essentially he doesn't have a place in the universe and or in the world he understands there's so much sympathy wait that was the idea I mean I had to have I had to construct that and then of course that hardens his vulnerability hardens into a menace very very distinctive hairstyle did you bury seemed of hairstyle very distinctive hat yeah and but the joy about him is that he's there's a mischief about him that you know that he's come to understand himself and he enjoys his badness you know the devil plays the best tunes so you you actually started acting even before you finished films I mean finished acting school you went you have this impeccable education you went to the Royal Academy in England and also graduated from Cambridge but I read that you at some point kept so what's interesting about that though and I've never said this actually just but even less thing to say is it was really it seems like a fait accompli that I went from one place to another but actually there was a huge challenge presented to me by the the administration at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art they didn't trust that I'd been to university it specifically to Cambridge because they thought I was that that's a place where you that although the work happens up here the dose of academic training and that she can be a hindrance to being an actor because being an act is about here and it's about you instinct and so was I had actually had a lot of work in persuading them that I had a guy who could I could feel as well as things yeah yeah so but it was an interesting really interesting they don't one doesn't necessarily follow the other they're very different kinds of course you know that the academic training at Cambridge is very rigorous and I loved it but being a rod it was about putting all that to one side and I remember a guy Irish guy said it said to me when I joined up he says you know look you've been to Cambridge and that and that's all very impressive and you know put your brain to one side now it comes from your balls so I took that I think that is that you put it's like a sampler that you stitched onto a pillow now yeah that at home yeah well what I did read that you even though you had a success and you obviously excelled academically and and in in drama school you also kept an audition diary which was like a catalogue of failures in your early days wow you really know yeah yes I did yeah well you know it's interesting I I when I started auditioning it I wanted to make sure that I remembered everybody I was meeting I just wanted to make sure I didn't forget people and remember their names very important in life to remember people's names I feel and and I basically I would write these things down as to make a note that I've met people casting directors direct ISM and it was starting to look a little bleak because there was there wasn't really an I wasn't booking any jobs but it would didn't lock luckily I was um I met a director called Joanna Hogg British director who had never made a film before and she cast me in something and it was I was completely free and didn't really know anything about acting for camera and I owe her so much it was a very small British film called unrelated that we made and and it was about a sort of previously dysfunctional family going on a holiday to Italy to try and find a way to be back together again never quite worked and it was very true to life and and very naturalistic and we improvised a lot and I learned more about the discipline of being true on camera than I ever had before did you at some point though before that happened think I'm gonna hang this up did you have a plan B of any kind not really I think Plan B's are dangerous because you always you're always at people I think tend to lean on them I had no plan B I was always going to be an actor and I guess that made me made me work harder in a way that didn't have any other options did you at least have terrible day jobs I was a waiter yeah yeah we're but you know is a guy too great sort of people-watching experience being a waiter you know it's a good waiter a bad waiter I turn we don't have tips I guess in England so doesn't I should we do but we just thought as generous is so as you guys said it yeah but yeah it was interesting it was really interesting I just paid attention to people who were nice to me and people who weren't and resolved to always be nice to waiters essentially but I actually enjoyed the camaraderie of it you know you can do a lot of people watching as a waiter so it's good for it good for young actor to look at different kinds of people coming through the door did you did you your family were they accepting of your decision to become an actor yeah they were they were really supportive my they just understood it I think very different my mom and dad have very different tastes very different understandings of the the nature of the business because my mother had worked in in Opera and so she understands sort of more she was a stage manager and a producer and understood and I understood the life of being a creative person my father was bit more unfamiliar and he was he was just worried about me getting bored and lonely and impoverished but he got it he really got it I was in something which is one of his favorite films I was lucky enough to be in something that he loved which is an HBO special about Winston Churchill in the 30s and it's called The Gathering Storm and Albert Finney plays Winston Churchill and Vanessa Redgrave plays his wife Clemmy and it's about how she Churchill was politically very unpopular in the early 30s and people wanted in to sort of retire early and stop being such a war monger stop starting a fight you know and and he was in he was sort of in a you know in real trouble because he had his own he had the courage of his convictions but nobody was listening and I played his son Randolph and my father was born in 1939 which is the year the film closes so it meant a huge amount to him emotionally you know he lived the first six years of his life was the first six years of the second and when he saw that he was like off you go off you go son you'll be all right you know he's from Glasgow I hasten to add in case you think I was speaking but then none of them probably thought that there would be such a thing as Hiddleston errs that's what your your fans are called right no I mean listen I it's funny isn't it that this sort of the culture of fans and actors in you know in in the world today I mean I I actually ten I think of I think of them as an audience I just think of them as a part of the audience you know actors can't call themselves actors without an audience to watch their work and and my fans have been extraordinary in some regards they you know that I am a big supporter of UNICEF the United Nations Children's Fund and last year I received a cheque in the post to deliver to UNICEF for 50,000 pounds which my fans had raised in my name to give to them which is an extraordinary thing if things amazing it's in that you realize that's an amazing impact that they have and I was I was I felt very proud of that in a way proud of them it was kind of stunning of course you know I'm sure we there are always one or two that do some beyond normal things but that's one or two who would win and if I hit all sinners or Cumberbitches finally we have a vote listen I don't think I think Benedict if he was standing here we would we would want there to be no fighting no fighting involved only passion and very much try to inspire a love as opposed to pugnacious Ness yeah welcome well played well played Oh before we get to audience questions I want to give you a little bit of time so this movie is a Gothic romance but you've also got a couple of other films coming out and one of which we get to hear you sing you play Hank Williams yes I do yeah and we have a little clip of that from the movie wild I saw the light and we'll play that moving in she changed a lot on our front door and my dorky don't fit no more so it's much higher than the right all young singing do you play yeah I think I sing and I play yeah um that was kind of part of the remit I think that must was it terrifying to take on something somebody as iconic as Hank Williams like that it was it was daunting initially but that's part of the thrill of the challenge for me and the thing about my thing the thing I wanted to to invest myself in was was I found the screenplay so moving and music has a huge impact on my life you know there's that phrase the SAS Walter Pater said all art aspires to the condition of music I think music is the most evocative the most immediate the most emotional art form and the more ender stood about Hank Williams the more I realized that he is a cornerstone in the landscape of American music without Hank we simply music as we know it doesn't look the same he inspired Bob Dylan and Keith Richards and Johnny Cash bruce springsteen you ask all of those guys you know who's up there in the in the in the pantheon as their inspirations and they talk about Hank and Hank in many ways was the first rock star any and he was very poor and he was from he was born in 1923 in Alabama or any-any and he had he was very weak he was too weak to work on the railroad or work on the farm or join the draft and and the thing he found he was good at from a very young age but he could play the guitar in exchange for chore money he was taught the guitar by this man called Rufus Payne used to call him Tito a black man who taught in the blues and and so really Hank Williams's is someone who's liked who's channeling this extraordinary blues tradition and infusing it with his own style and creating country music or not creating it but but taking it on a step from Ernest Tubb and and Roy Acuff who were the big stars at the time did you do you feel like you have a responsibility as a performer when you're capturing especially certainly when you're playing real-life people but even these moments in history which you're clearly really read up on do you feel like you have a responsibility as a performer to tell a certain truth about that the responsibility is huge simply because I felt responsibility to his legacy to to to his family and to all the people to whom I means so much I mean I got to Nashville I went to Nashville six weeks ahead of shooting and I had this extraordinary time I lived with the musician called Rodney Crowell and he was my tutor in the ways of the blues and just being in Nashville and understanding you people come up to you and say oh you're playing Eric you know my granddaddy used to play these songs when I was just a weak kid on his knee and you realized that the Hank means so much to so many people and so the responsibility is is profound but more than that there was an amazing quote I found from an old friend of his called Danny dill who said you'd say you know thing is legends don't know their legends when they're being met they just people they just folks and that's the thing about Hank is he was just a young man who sang and wrote from the bottom of his heart and that's why he connected so deeply with the American South is because when he sang about being in a dog house or he's saying I'm so lonesome I could cry everybody knew it was real and in the wake of the scene of 1948 1947 this is after the Second World War you know self-respecting men of the South didn't say that they didn't admit they were so lonesome I could cry and that's what he kind of he just he touched something and really I just wanted to honor that I wanted to honor his authenticity and and his he was a pure artist I think he was a genius you know I reserve the word very you know like John Lennon was a genius and he'd they're very few musical geniuses out there but I think he was and I think there was something about him as a performer that I found interesting did you perform yourself growing up did you have bands no but III there's something about because I'm as I guess I'm a theater actor at heart in a way and well that's where I began so I understand the connection the purity of the connection between a performer and a live audience there really is a magic that happens you know the play guys but when you're when you're telling a story or singing a song or performing something that is very vulnerable the audience are always complicit in that moment and there's nothing like entertaining people or making people laugh or making people feel good and I think he he made people feel so good you know some of those early songs he wrote hey good-looking and and his cover of lovesick blues and and move it on over which you just saw you know if you listen to Hanks rendition to move it on over you can actually sing rock around the clock by Bill Haley which is coming down around the corner in five years time it's it melodically exactly the same and so his influence on on early rock and roll is is deep and a B there was something in the I should just say this there was something in the script which is which is brilliant which is something I've always thought about which is the responsibility of the artist to represent a a less comfortable side to human nature and there's a there's a scene in the film with a reporter from the Tribune where this he's got us to the cynicism about country music and he thinks it's all packaged and and synthetic and Hank this had a few too many whiskey's already and he fixes him what he fixes his reporter and he says you don't it you don't understand this is music is sincere man sings a sad song he knows a sailor and he talks about his responsibility as a singer to communicate the darker aspects of human nature you know diets anger misery sorrows shame and it's funny because I had been on set to going back to Loki a long time ago now with Antony Hopkins and he told me this story about his own fascination with screen with subscreen villains and he said you know I've been doing this a long time and I've played lots of different characters that played kings and Butler's and poets and warriors and soldiers and princes and people stopped me in the street and they asked me about one man and you all will know who that man is and he said it's you know I said it's fascinating you know all of us would like to read back to our lives to be full of love and and and and and friendship and laughter and all these lovely things we like to you know but we like to go into a dark room on a Friday night with all the lights out we would like to sit there together they want to watch someone lean into the darkness we leaned that and but but I he was making interesting point which is which is that we do you know if you think of the great artists we admire the great writers the great musicians the great actors whether it's some I don't know Gaia or Amy Winehouse or Heath Ledger we're so compelled by performers who dare to lean into something more unsettling and I understood that that's who Hank was one of those guys he was one of those performers who was able to in a way perform open-heart surgery on himself and put it into song and give it to the world and you know I it was one of the most incredibly fulfilling experiences of my life as an actor and I hope people enjoy the film on this year yeah well that's that's the difference between actors and everybody else actors want to live in that emotional moment and all the rest of us are like we talked about that with our shrink yeah I don't know if you don't want to live in it forever but there's something about exploring that for sure do you guys want to ask some questions okay do we have the mics okay we're gonna bring the mics down okay so actually what we're gonna do is we have some mics set up and if you guys could pull out and and stand by the mics that way everybody can hear you and people watching at home can hear you too thank you all right you're first up over here on the left hi Tom hi my name is Isabel hi Isabel um I I just want to say thank you for inspiring at the Hiddleston errs because not known not only with your roles but with the way you live your life thank you you know you you've said some quotes they show us the light inside of us so I just want to say thank you and like this opportunity is the biggest my life ISO crimson peak last week I know the secrets okay don't tell so I was just wondering if I could give you a hug oh you know ma'am Mary don't worry yeah sure come on normally you have to take me out to dinner first fine thank you so much I don't know if I got it yet yeah thank you thank you okay well keep going over here hmm I get it good evening my name is Eric hello I'd like to extrapolate from what you said in your conversation with Anthony Hopkins he said that he's played all these roles but people remember that one character we definitely know you as more than just Loki but in this culture right now we kind of and I speak as a huge fan of the Marvel movies we these cut these roles are kind of very larger-than-life I was wondering is how you as an actor how do you not kind of let yourself be overshadowed by the size of Loki and his imprint in pop culture I'm very I mean it's I should just say it's um it's in it's still a source of constant surprise that the impact that character has had and I approached it like I approached every other character I play try to give him dimension and a degree of psychological truth in spite of the the larger-than-life aspect of it and I can never in my wildest dreams what I predicted that it would catch fire like he has but I suppose I'm like I chased my own curiosity in a way and it may be a process I'm not entirely conscious of that I'll be able to look back on and understand why I wanted to do certain things and also I became an actor to play lots of different people I'm so if I find I'm sorry I became an active exam such a fan of the cinema itself I believe in the power of storytelling and I believe in it very sincerely because I it changed my life and I think it really has the power to impact people and you know many of us are a little bit older probably and so but I think there's a there's a moment specifically in the decade the second decade of life when one's a teenager in it ones 20 s it can remind theater can really speak to you and change the way you conceive of the world and then it happened there the great surprise when it keeps happening and you think it's not gonna happen again you see a film that that makes you still you stay in your seat for five minutes after the credits just thinking about what you've just seen and it stays with you for a day for an afternoon for a week for a month for a year AK still happens to me and I just want to be part of that conversation I really believe in it and so I just commit myself to - to the truth of the character in the world of the film every time thank you thank you Jasmine okay we have a couple more minutes I just have one question what advice would you give to young directors starting out on art of working with actors like which steps would you give advice in order to like communicate better with the actors and create a more organic process I'm always so cautious about giving advice because I think people need to find their own way but or they want to you know so but if I had anything to say I would say be open be open and and be receptive don't be closed you know that there's a I always sort of say that the most exciting acting I've ever done is when I feel like I'm being given the secrets of the scene by by the other actor and it feels like a tennis match is that you don't know how they're pulling out the shots they're pulling out but you know you have to just get it back across the net and sometimes and that's about the discipline of preparation before you start work and then freedom in the work so that you know you know know your lines know the world of the film know the film know who you're playing and then turn off and play it be there just be there make time to play let's say sorry I'll try and be a bit more brief so you can all get through hello I lost my voice sorry aya tube had the pleasure of seeing the film last week and I saw elements of Jack claims the innocence Hitchcock's Rebecca the changeling I'm a big fan of gothic horror as well so I was wondering if there were any specific films that you referenced and if so did you study the blocking of those films so that you'd be able to interact with the set better in the cinematography or if there was just the performances of actors and actresses inside the films well and all those films you mentioned I know Guillermo would would he would tip his hat to that and and congratulate you on recognizing it - I wanted to stay away from cinematic inspiration in case because I didn't want I didn't want anything to seem like an impersonation of somebody else so Mike so I really dug into the literature and the literature for me was was very inspiring I love Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca it's a fantastic novelist I remember I read it for the first time I was about 17 and it made a huge impact is beautifully written and I and then I read it again in my mid-20s so I could see the echoes of that structure in the script but no I think I just wanted to stay away from imitation so my inspirations are much more painting oriented and literature orientated the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich were really inspiring to me he has a way of representing that the sort of that the passion of romance in some of it in some of his paintings which I with are very inspiring Thanks I wanted to ask about the preparation that you do as an actor between a film preparing for a film as opposed to preparing for theatre because you're you know you talk about being trained for theater as a theater actor and you came into film never doing that before I imagine for you also the rewards are different you have a different platform you know a theater it's more intimate in its life where a film will live on forever this the digital the celluloid is never going away so about the preparation and the reward that you find in in each I think there's a different there's a I love them both I really do and immediately the thing there are so many I could go on for hours but the thing that the thing that immediately comes up is the difference in the working methods itself theater the pleasure of working in the theater is being able to refine the integrity of the whole piece over a period of months so that you perform the entire narrative from A to Z every night night after night after night and you can what happens is your authority over the over the over the work gets stronger and stronger and so your power to change things and try things out changes whereas in film you're working in an isolated moment and so you turn up on set and you work on that one scene with the kind of forensic attention for one day and then you leave it and it's gone and so you never have the same sense of the whole piece and you and you yield that to the editor and to the director but at the same time you have the time in film to take the to take to be as forensic as that wears onstage it's live and you have to keep going and so if you make a mistake or if you you try something out it doesn't work there's no time to go back and do it again here's Detroiter oh yeah yes definitely it sharpens your instinct I think it keeps you on your toes but interestingly enough I would encourage theater actors to do film as well because there's something so unforgiving about the camera and the truthfulness of it I've worked with the director called Terrence Davis once in a film called the deep blue sea and he said the camera captures the truth but it also captures falsity so if you don't feel that it's true don't do it and that's always the interesting myth about acting is that it's a whole bunch of art it's all artifice whereas when when you I think any of us would admit when we've been moved and if I went round and asked what's that one of you whether you last profoundly moved by an actor but likelihood is that they're being truthful in that moment as opposed to dishonest that there's more truth than artifice and I think that's their that's the rigor in a way of being an actor all right we have time for maybe one more question Oh more but I'll be brief okay hello my name is nippy and I'm also Marvel fan I also loved only lovers left alive and I believe Fitzgerald in Midnight in Paris and I was just wondering if there was well it's an either/or question either is there a role that hasn't been made yet that you would find to be your dream role like a role that hasn't been written or is there a role that has been written that you would love to play but haven't yet I don't know I don't like to make too many plans because it's more exciting to see what comes up you know and sometimes you'll be presented with something that that turns into something very exciting you know like all of those all of those characters you mentioned actually it's funny because because directors are very generous and they can prison they can offer you a silhouette that you then step into and you were laughs and they're open enough to allow you to inform who they are so obviously Loki had a very distinct you know shape he'd been a Norse God and a comic book villain for a long time but I was able to sort of try and try and infuse him with with what I understood his human motivations Jim Jarmusch in with only lovers left alive he knew that this guy was Moody and and and he was a musician and that he was that he had a passion for science and actually that those twin passions for music and science were weighted to the same thing that it was actually about the vibration of molecules and it you know and also that he was deeply romantic actually that underneath all of his sort of depressive mnestheus a huge heart and and he and he and we had a wonderful time you know Gemini until their swinton talking about the sort of things they'd talk about you know I remember one one day till they came down here doing a week of prep and by prep I mean sitting around a table for eight hours and talking about what we loved and totally came in with a printout from the from a BBC website which which he/she knew Jim would love and they discovered a star in the universe that was made out of a cluster of shattered diamonds and emitted a musical signal and Jim was like wow that's pretty cool we should put that in the movie so so it is and so yeah if there's always room for manoeuvre I don't know if for the impression thing is something I've always just that's how I tell stories I guess so yeah I do do some impressions thanks to May 1 - you've talked a lot about artists you know exposing their darker sides like Hank Williams touching on his struggles van Gogh all these great people who have you know anxiety or depression or whatever it is I'm just wondering for someone obviously you've been tremendously successful do you have your own anxiety nervousness demons that you face and how do you cope with that perhaps when you're you know preparing for a role of course I do yeah I wouldn't be human if I didn't write and I don't know how I sort of how I channel it you know it's um I sort of enjoy the fact that life gets a bit more complicated and I also think that's the point and of life is that I just when you think you've got the hang of it life will surprise you you know and I think that's that could be said for anyone in any walk of life and I try to turn if I have any anxiety I tried to turn it into excitement certainly about performing but yeah III wouldn't be human if I hadn't felt you know lonely and sad and angry and all the things that we all feel you know and willing to come be on stage at the drop of a hat that it wasn't that although that was all good I try to you know I sort of a weird self medication as I run I won a lot and I think on that note I'm gonna cut you off because you have to go okay to run thank you all for coming thank you

Channel: Torrilla

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Id: EdRSnxr3eBw

Length: 56min 18sec (3378 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 13 2015