Tom Hiddleston talks #Hiddlesbum & the crappy critical response to ISTL
I got schooled by InStyle about the color of Tom Hiddleston’s suit in this ^^ photo. It’s “oxblood.” And Tom chose this Dolce & Gabbana suit for the Tribeca High Rise premiere because: “I tried it on and it reminded me of the ‘70s, and High-Rise is set in the ‘70s.” I can sort of see that. At the Tribeca premiere last week, Hiddles was asked a lot of questions about the #Hiddlesbum, which not only makes an appearance in The Night Manager but in High Rise as well. Hiddles reiterated that he’s totally fine with nudity just as long as there’s some purpose to it, as there was in High Rise:
“You don’t see anything more than you would see if you saw me walking along the beach wearing swimming trunks, but it’s important in the story… my character, Dr. Laing, moves into a high rise to get away from the entanglements of real life. He’s actually recovering from a family trauma and he’s looking forward to the anonymity and the clean, clinical space of his apartment. The first thing he does is he takes his clothes off and he sunbathes in the nude. And then that piece is interrupted immediately and he is never naked again. His way of exercising control is to stay clothed. He actually keeps his tie on until the very last moment, so thematically, it was important to do that. It’s always a slightly nerve-racking moment, but I understood it.”
As for how he reacts to swooning fans, it’s all part of the job.
“It’s very flattering… it’s funny. We all think that everyone else is sexier, everyone else is cooler. It’s something to do with the human condition. You can’t ever conceive that you might be seen as that way,” he quipped. “Anyway, I’m trying to take it as a compliment.”
Weirdly, he really did get asked about the #Hiddlesbum by nearly every outlet. E! News carried some quotes about it too – go here to see. And when Tom was interviewed in the New York Times, they too asked him about his sex scenes in The Night Manager. Are we really that starved for male nudity that we have to ask male stars about it constantly? Here are some highlights from his NYT interview:
He’s sorry for being everywhere all of a sudden: “I apologize, unreservedly, first of all, for being everywhere. I’m sure it’s deeply tiresome and nobody wants to ever see my face again. There’s a strange coincidence in that the work of the last 18 months of my life has all been released at the same time. And for me, each piece of work has such integrity and focus. But it must seem different to be in the audience. I do feel very lucky that I’m allowed to do so many different things.”
The time in between shooting “High-Rise” & “I Saw the Light”: “I shot them back to back, so I had a week off in between….It was very strange. I’m happy I had the week off. I finished “High-Rise” on the 25th of August, 2014, and I landed in Nashville on the 2nd of September. And I think it took me a while to shake “High-Rise,” in a way. When you’ve been immersed in one particular environment, it casts a shadow for a time. It was mad, thinking about it. Thank God I went straight to Tennessee, because otherwise I would never have been able to get my head in the game.”
The crappy critical response to I Saw the Light: “Well I’d be a fool if I didn’t admit it’s not the best news in the world. But the experience of making that film was so pleasurable that I’ll always have it. The people I’ve met who’ve seen the film have been very generous and have somehow caught a sense of the passion with which it was made. It was a huge labor of love. I spent over five months of my life making it, thinking about it every minute of every day. That’s what it’s like making films. You commit a huge amount of time and energy to make things and it only takes two hours for anyone in the audience, whether they like it or not. But everyone is entitled to their opinion, and the only thing I can control is my commitment to the work.
His Night Manager sex scenes causing a commotion: “It was probably very good that I was away in Vietnam making “Kong: Skull Island” when that happened. When we shot the scene, I didn’t see it as being any more or less significant than any other scene in “The Night Manager.” The response is surprising, but it is what it is, I guess. The thing about any love scene, I think the representation is always quite different from the actual experience of making it.”
You know what I like about this? I like that the NYT asked him flat-out about the terrible reviews of I Saw the Light and his publicist didn’t yank him away. I also like that he was able to answer that question with a great deal of diplomacy without throwing anyone under the bus. That’s how it should be for actors, but it’s rare that they can answer those kinds of questions with Hiddleston’s grace.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
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