Archipelago - Tom Hiddleston interview

TOM Hiddleston talks about reuniting with director Joanna Hogg for Archipelago and how he was able to collaborate in building the passive character of Edward – a man in search of his own identity within his family and place in the world. He also talks about working with Kenneth Branagh on Thor and with Steven Spielberg for the adaptation of War Horse…

Q. How did you go about building the character of Edward in Archipelago and, in turn, how difficult did you find him to play because he is so passive?
Tom Hiddleston: The reason I really wanted to play the part and do the film, I think, is because I recognised in him a struggle… a struggle to define himself as an individual within the wider context of the family. I think that’s something that everybody struggles with. At Christmas, individuals are apportioned their roles in the family script – you’re either the funny one or the sensitive one; or you either do the cooking or the washing up. And those roles aren’t easy to change. I think Edward is someone who, at a later stage of his development possibly, is really trying to define himself by casting off in a new direction.

He’s leaving a job in the city, he’s going to do 11 months of volunteer work in Africa, and the attitudes of his mother, sister and absent father are complicated and ambivalent and contradictory. I think he finds the fact that they aren’t particularly behind him to be a source of confusion and doubt. So, really in terms of building the character I did a huge amount of research on Africa, because although the film is improvised, if someone asked a question I’d be armed to the teeth with very real knowledge of what he would be going out to do.

And what was extraordinary about that was that I learned a lot about voluntary service in Africa that I never knew. Everybody thinks that you go to Africa and you build a school, or you teach English, or you build a hospital. But actually all you need to do is play football with kids for six months and then after they’ve trusted you, you tell them about the truth of Aids, and that their grandmother didn’t die from witchcraft, she died from Aids. And that’s the biggest difference you can make. So, I did a lot of work on that and then really just trying to inhabit a part of myself that was doubtful and vulnerable.

Q. How challenging was that?
Tom Hiddleston: It was challenging because he’s a passive man, a reactive person. In my own family, I’m much more proactive, I think, and within any confrontation I’ll meet it head on and try and sort it out. I’m just much stronger I think. I don’t allow myself to be beaten down in a debate. I’ve got a louder voice within a family context. So, this seemed like a very interesting way of exploring someone who is asking lots of questions… a struggle for self definition, a struggle for person freedom, and how do we all define ourselves in the world? How do we feel autonomous? Quite often, most of us are defined first by our vital statistics – our sex, our height, our weight, the colour of our eyes and then we’re defined by our job. But here, Edward doesn’t know what his job is, or what his worth is in society. So, he’s trying to find that and his family is judging him for it.

Q. So, how has your relationship with [writer-director] Joanna Hogg evolved since your first film together [Unrelated] and Archipelago? Do you find her method of directing – long takes, minimal camera movement – to be freeing as an actor?
Tom Hiddleston: I do. I think because she makes films that really do evolve out of questions in her own mind. She’s quite unflinching in her cinematic directive and she just wants to make films that dramatise questions or problems that she sees, observes and feels in everyday life. She’s very inclusive with me. She says we’re always talking. In creating Edward we had these conversations on the phone before she wrote the script. She said: “I was never a young man, so can you share with me your pre-occupations as a young man? What hopes do you have for your future? What keeps you up at night? What are your demons? What are your fears? And not just yours, but your peers and your generation?”

And all those questions are fed somehow into the mix of the story. So, I do feel like I’m not just a hired gun to hit my mark and say a line. I feel like I have a huge creative input in terms of the philosophical tone of the film in a way. We also inspire each other a lot. I’ll say something or she’ll say something; I’ll have read a book and she’ll have a read a book and we’ll do a swap and ask each other what we think of this or that. It’s a very open and mutually generous relationship.

Q. Do you miss that when you get on sets like Thor? I mean, you do have a pre-existing relationship with [director] Kenneth Branagh [from Wallander] which must have helped there?
Tom Hiddleston: Yes I do. But I always find that each one is different. It’s like going to a different party where there’s a different dress code or something. Actually, on Thor Ken sat me down with the writer about nine months before we started – just the three of us – and we’d already read the first draft and Ken literally said: “What do you think? You’ve read the comics, bring yourself to it at this stage of the game. We’re not going to write the character and just expect you to turn up.

So, what do you think is interesting about the character [of Thor’s nemesis, Loki]? How can we expand it? How can we take him in a different direction? What’s the tone of the film?” I always do feel, actually… and I’ve been so lucky to work with directors who are as collaborative as they are… or who come in understanding that film is a collaboration and that you can’t really ask an actor to play the part without asking for their understanding of the world, in a way, because what they’re going to bring to the world is who they are. Certainly, with Joanna in terms of what is actually said I have a lot more creative power, I suppose.

But the thing about the other films I’ve made since working with her – Thor with Kenneth Branagh, Midnight in Paris with Woody Allen, War Horse with Steven Spielberg and The Deep Blue Sea with Terence Davies – is that there are certain things in the scripts that need to be planned: you know, big stunt sequences, battle sequences… you can’t improvise that stuff. You can improvise when there’s just two of you standing in a kitchen and the most dramatic thing that’s going to happen is someone’s going to open the fridge. But when you’re doing a cavalry charge in War Horse or a huge battle in Thor these things need to be planned and budgeted for. It’s a different process, so it’s tough to say which I prefer. They’re different processes, but neither is particularly better or worse.

Q. So, what was the experience of working with Steven Spielberg on War Horse for you like as an actor?
Tom Hiddleston: Extraordinary. I mean, he’s a genius – which probably comes as no surprise [laughs. He’s incredibly inclusive as a man. He’s very, very open and very warm and very, very generous and kind. And he’s also passionate. He’s got an extraordinary passion that’s still alive and un-jaded… he still loves film and loves actors and stories. His real genius is in watching the swiftness and decisiveness of his execution and how clearly and cleanly he knows exactly what he wants. He edits during lunch breaks and on Saturdays, so he’s actually editing the film as he is shooting it, which belies a speed of mind.

He has the whole picture planned in his own mind before he starts and so he’s very, very clear about what he wants. His mastery of story-telling is amazing – the way he can hone in on a moment, understanding if it’s going to make the story better. It’s never about indulging a performance or himself – you know, let’s just put this huge stunt in because it’ll look cool. It’s only to serve the story. He’s absolutely rigorous but at the same time a complete gent… everyone’s favourite grandpa. Well, not quite yet! Everyone’s favourite dad [laughs]!

Q. I’ve read that you want to work with Joanna a third time, but will that get harder to do now that you’re so busy and are on Hollywood’s radar, so to speak?
Tom Hiddleston: I guess I just have to make the space. I suppose I’m fascinated with her because she’s carving out her own furrow in the business and it’s quite a courageous and poetic furrow. I think she points her camera at a section of society that doesn’t normally get presented in cinema. I’ve always thought that there’s a whole section of the British cinema going public who don’t see themselves represented in the movies. They see American middle classes in movies like The Kids Are All Right, or The Squid & The Whale, or Please Give… admittedly, they’re smaller, independent films. In Europe, with the likes of Michael Haneke there’s a huge tradition of middle class drama within European film.

There really isn’t in this country and it’s a shame, in a way, that it has to be located in the past – it has to be The King’s Speech or Downton Abbey, both of which I think are tremendous. But it’s almost as if we have to locate our insecurities in the past. And I think Joanna’s very courageously saying: “This is who we are now…” Not all of us! But some of us, and it’s worth having a look.