Background Image

...

I Thought Theater People Wouldn't See Me If I Hadn't Trained. I Didn't Want To Just Be The Brideshead Guy, To Spend The Rest Of My Life Wearing Waistcoats. I Got The Chance To Try Everything. Not Just Romeos, But Pimps And Grandfathers And Even One Role As A Woman In A Naomi Wallace Play Called Slaughter City.

-Tom Hiddleston

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Thought Theater People

Tom Hiddleston

...

I Thought Theater People Wouldn't See Me If I Hadn't Trained. I Didn't Want To Just Be The Brideshead Guy, To Spend The Rest Of My Life Wearing Waistcoats. I Got The Chance To Try Everything. Not Just Romeos, But Pimps And Grandfathers And Even One Role As A Woman In A Naomi Wallace Play Called Slaughter City.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Tom Hiddleston

I Definitely Go Through Periods Where I'm In A Particular Mood, Or There's A Consistent Imaginative Context That I Feel I'm In, And I'm Drawn To Certain Things. I Can Sometimes Feel It When I'm Moving Away From Something That I Was Once Interested In - An Idea Or An Exploration Of Particular Relationships. I Go, 'well, I Think I've Done That And I Don't Want To Do It Again.'

What Is The Best Use Of My Time On This Planet?

I Would Always Play The Baddie, Incidentally.

You've Got To Do Something, Even If It's Just To Kick-start The Day. I Use Music. And Running.

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.

Daniel Day-lewis Is Particularly A Sort Of Beacon I've Been Following For Some Time. For God's Sake, I'm Not Even In His League But He Inspires Me Because He's Not Interested In Playing Himself; He's Only Interested In Playing Other People And The Whole Thing Is Like An Adventure For Him, It Seems To Me. It's Some Kind Of Spiritual Exploration, Which Is An Amazing, Noble Thing.

There’s An Iago And A Romeo Within All Of Us. There Is That Lover, And There Is That Sociopath.

Artists Instinctively Want To Reflect Humanity, Their Own And Each Other's, In All Its Intermittent Virtue And Vitality, Frailty And Fallibility.

For The First 10 Minutes After You Meet Them, They Have The Wattage And Charisma Of Movie Stars. Then You Have A Coffee With Them And You Realize We're All The Same, We're All Just People. All Of The Actors In The Avengers Are So Nice. Marvel Has These Code Names For Projects And The Code Name For The Avengers Was Group Hug. It Felt Very Much Like A Group Hug On Set.

I Believe In The Strength And Intelligence And Sensitivity Of Women. My Mother, My Sisters [they] Are Strong. My Mum Is A Strong Woman And I Love Her For It.

I Love Playing All Kinds Of Roles. I Hope It Doesn’t Sound Too Pretentious, But I Always Feel Human Nature Is Like A Piano, And There Are 88 Keys, And There Are Some White Keys And Some Black Keys, And Each Character Is A Different Chord On The Piano. Basically, I Hope That In The Course Of My Life, I Will Have Played All 88 Keys. So, I’ll Have Played Heroes And Villains And Princes And Kings And Warriors And Beggars And Thieves And Lovers And Fathers And Wizards And All Of Those Things. That Is Why I’m An Actor… I Love Studying People.

The Character, As Written On The Page, Is Just A Blueprint For A Human Being.

I Never Get Afraid Of Things. I Only Get Excited.

I Did A Production Of 'journey's End,' An Rc Sherriff Play About World War I, At The Edinburgh Festival. I Was 18 And It Was The First Time That People I Knew And Loved And Respected Came Up To Me After The Show And Said, 'you Know, You Could Really Do This If You Wanted To.'

Haters Never Win. I Just Think That's True About Life, Because Negative Energy Always Costs In The End.

I’m Not A Big Fan Of The Class System, To Be Honest. It Feels Ugly To Me. If You’ve Got Something To Say And The Work Is Good, It Doesn’t Matter Where You Come From

I Always Wanted To See What America Was Like. I Had That Curiosity In My 20s When I Was Working In The Theatre Here [ In London]... There Was The Mystery Of La And I Wondered What Happened Over There. I Wanted To Go And Check It Out And I'm Pleased That I Have.

Showing Young Children In These Communities, That There Are Outlets For Their Feelings, That There Is Room In A Space For Their Stories To Be Told, And That They Will Be Applauded - And It's Not About Ego, It's About Connection: That Their Pain Is Everybody Else's Pain.

I Am No Saviour. I’m Absolutely The Last Person On The Planet Who Can Practically Help. I Don’t Know How To Make The Different Types Of Therapeutic Feeding Milk. I’m No Chemist. I’m No Doctor. I’m No Engineer. I Can’t Manufacture Polio Vaccines Or Organise Their Transportation To The Health Centres In Saramoussayah Or Bissikirima. I Can’t Build Schools, Or Design Drainage Systems. I Can’t Provide The Women And Children Of Mandiana With Water.all I Can Do Now Is Help Make People Aware Of What Is Happening, Of What They Are Doing. That Is All That I Can Do. For Now.

I Think Everyone Should Pursue Their Dreams. Whether You Want To Play Football, Act, Sing, Become A Writer Or Whatever You Have Burning Inside You As You’re Growing Up, You Should Pursue It.

An Ant Has No Quarrel With A Boot.

The Night Manager Doesn't Exist In The Post-cold War Universe, It Exists Much More In The Modern World, I Think. There Is More Action. The Bad Guys Don't Have Particularly Political Or National-political Affiliations.

I Think When The World Makes You Feel Rejected, You Bite Back.

South Sudan Is The Youngest Nation On The Planet.

I Fundamentally Believe That In The Moral Balance Of The Human Race, We Right Ourselves. If We Feel Like The Ship's Keel Is Off, We Find A Way To Steer Ourselves Through The Storm Repeatedly.

I Loved Adventure Movies. I Loved Movies Where People Went On An Adventure To An Unknown Land, An Undiscovered Country, Or A New Territory. I Think There's Something, Right At The Center Of Storytelling, That People Love About That.

I Am An Optimist... I Choose To Be. There Is A Lot Of Darkness In Our World, There Is A Lot Of Pain And You Can Choose To See That Or You Can Choose To See The Joy. If You Try To Respond Positively To The World, You Will Spend Your Time Better.

I Don't Want To Name Names Because I Don't Want To Draw Too Many Direct Comparisons But The History Of Fascism Is Populated By People Who Need To Subjugate Other People And Elevate Their Status And Power To A Level Which Is Supreme. Usually, Any Psychological Study Of Those People Will Reveal A Sort Of Lost, Damaged Child, Who Is Somehow Heartbroken And Doesn't Have Any Self-worth.

I Do Sort Of Believe That In Life All Manifestations Of Evil Usually Come From An Emotional Place. They Come From Some Kind Of Emotional Heartbreak Or Some Psychological Damage. I'm Not A Psychologist And That's Probably For The Best But I Am Interested In It.

I've Done My Share Of Period Stuff. I'm Not Sure Why, But People Say I Have A Period Face. The Bread And Butter Of British Tv Is Jane Austen Adaptations And Bridges And Bonnets And Boats And Horses.

I Don't Think I've Ever Been Face To Face With Pure Evil, So I Don't Think I've Ever Seen It With My Own Eyes. But I Do Understand Human Frailty And I Do Understand The Capacity Of People To Be Intermittently Noble And Virtuous And Fallible.

I Was Informed Yesterday That There's A Twitter Account For My Laugh. Very Hard To Get Used To Things Like That. Pretty Amazing.

We Pull On To The Road, Where Our Only Company Are The Wandering Cattle, Who Have Become Commonplace As Traffic Lights. Lethargic And Listless, They Look Like They've Been Roaming The Roads Of Guinea Since The Dawn Of Time. And No Doubt They Will Continue To Long After We're Gone.

In 'thor,' That Was My Own Hair. I Grew It Out. But I Have Naturally Curly, Blonde Hair, So I'll Never Look Like That. By The Time I Got To 'the Avengers,' I Had Come Off Two Other Films, Which Required Me To Have It Very Short. So I Dyed It Again And It Was Long Enough To Use A Part Of My Hairline.

It Was Quite A European War Until 1917, When The Americans Joined Up. They Don't Have The Same Sense Of The Loss Of Innocence And The Cataclysmic Loss Of Life. A Whole Generation Was Wiped Out.

Everythings A Choice. Nobody's Born Good. Nobody's Born Evil. It's Always A Choice.

Whenever I Come Back To London, Which Is Home, I Get That Cosy, Comfortable Feeling Of Being Home, As Well As The Sophistication Of This City.

I Even Feel Grateful For The Failures.

I Try Not To Make Plans. God Always Laughs At Your Plans.

I Don't Think Anyone, Until Their Soul Leaves Their Body, Is Past The Point Of No Return.

I Think If You're Going To Be Conventionally Romantic You've Got To Go All The Way: A Beautiful Dinner Somewhere Lovely, With Boat-loads Of Flowers, Chocolates And Champagne. But It Might Also Be Nice To Wrap Up Warm And Sit On A Roof Somewhere, With A Cup Of Hot Soup And Your Girl, Watch The Planes Come In Over London And Listen To The Night.

Do The Work, Enjoy The Work, Take It Seriously, Don't Take Yourself Seriously And Keep Your Head Down!

I Wonder What The World Would Be Like If Everybody Walked Their Talk; If Word Was Married With Deed; Promises Delivered By Action.

For Myself, For A Long Time... Maybe I Felt Inauthentic Or Something, I Felt Like My Voice Wasn't Worth Hearing, And I Think Everyone's Voice Is Worth Hearing. So If You've Got Something To Say, Say It From The Rooftops.

Within Us There Is The Capacity Of Being Anyone Or Anything

The Thing That Keeps You Grounded Is Doing The Thing You Love.

Things You Love

I Think Cruelty Is Just Loneliness Disguised As Bitterness.

Very Honest, I Hope. God, I Don't Know. I Hope I'm Fun, I Hope I Am A Good Time. Spontaneous, Surprising, Affectionate? I Hope, Kind. Dancing A Lot Of Dancing. I Insist Upon Dancing. Anywhere. Anytime. The More Dancing, The Better

The Bit I Love Is I Really Love Acting, Really, And The Circus Of Being A Celebrity Is Something I'm Sort Of Not Interested In. I Find It Strange.

You Never Know What's Around The Corner. It Could Be Everything. Or It Could Be Nothing. You Keep Putting One Foot In Front Of The Other, And Then One Day You Look Back And You've Climbed A Mountain.

You Look At The Greatest Villains In Human History, The Fascists, The Autocrats, They All Wanted People To Kneel Before Them Because They Don't Love Themselves Enough.

This Generation Has Lost The True Meaning Of Romance. There Are So Many Songs That Disrespect Women. You Can’t Treat The Woman You Love As A Piece Of Meat. You Should Treat Your Love Like A Princess. Give Her Love Songs, Something With Real Meaning. Maybe I’m Old Fashioned But To Respect The Woman You Love Should Be A Priority.

As A Citizen, You Have A Duty To Ask What Is True And What Is False.

I Think A Healthy Connection With The Natural World Actually Makes Us More Human.

It’s Always About, Somehow, Finding A Part Of Myself That Is Relevant, And Then Turning The Volume Up On That Particular Part. So, I Am All Of The Characters I've Ever Played, And I Am None Of Them At The Same Time.

Somehow The Past Is A Safe Place To Explore Our Collective Cultural Neuroses.

I Always Thought Of Running As Just Dancing Forward.

Inspirational Running

I Grew Up Watching 'superman.' As A Child, When I First Learned To Dive Into A Swimming Pool, I Wasn't Diving, I Was Flying, Like Superman. I Used To Dream Of Rescuing A Girl I Had A Crush On From A Playground Bully.

I Find That, When I'm Working, If I Start The Day With A Run - Outside, Not In A Gym, But Just Me Out There In The Elements, With Only My Own Legs To Propel Me Forward... It's Something To Do With Just Being In The World And Getting Out Of My Own Head.

Well, I Don't Know. When I Signed My Contract, I Signed To Play Loki In Five More Marvel Movies, But They Were Unspecified. So, If There Will Be More Movies Or Not Remains To Be Seen, But I Like The Idea Of Loki Turning Up In The Shadows When People Least Expect Him, But You Never Know These Things, The World Changes And The Things Change, But I Feel Like I Know Who Loki Is, So I Wouldn't Mind.

Nurture Your Own Confidence And Make It Real; Don't Pretend To Be Someone You're Not.

It's A Rare Thing When You Can Read A Script In One Sitting And You Haven't Looked At The Watch Or You've Gone To Make A Cup Of Tea.

Make Sure You Tell The People You Love That You Love Them. Loudly And Often. You Never Know When It Might Be Too Late.

My Favourite Pudding Is A Toss-up Between Cheesecake - Proper, New York Cheesecake - And Apple Crumble And Custard. Custard Is Very Important, Or Dark Chocolate Mousse. Tea: Probably Earl Grey, Splash Of Milk.

I Have Been Allowed To Inhabit Different Shades Of Human Nature And Different Colours Of Truth Indifferent Circumstances.

I Am So Profoundly Aware Of My Lack Of Skill To Make Any Material Difference. I Am Not A Doctor. I Can't Influence Foreign Policy. I Can't Build Schools. I Can't Chemically Engineer The Protein Paste That Helps People With Acute Malnutrition. But I Can Talk About It, And So Can You.

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.

It's Like Playing Tennis, You Play A Different Rally With Different People. Every Actor Is Different And The Chemistry Between Actors Is Different.

I Had Huge Fun With Chris Evans, As Captain America, Because Super-soldier Though He May Be, He's Still A Man, Up Against A God Who In His Own Mind Is Infinitely Superior. Then, In The Ring With The Hulk, We've Got This Silver Tongued, Lightening Quick Mind Up Against The Embodiment Of Rage..loki Has This Mercurial, Transformative Ability, Not Just Physically But Intellectually, So Not All The Fights Are Purely Physical. Mind Games? Maybe.

The Learning Is The Heavy Lifting. You Need To Get The Words Into Your Brain.

Having Seen What I've Seen In South Sudan, There's No Way I Can't Talk About It.

Stay Hungry, Stay Young, Stay Foolish, Stay Curious, And Above All, Stay Humble Because Just When You Think You Got All The Answers, Is The Moment When Some Bitter Twist Of Fate In The Universe Will Remind You That You Very Much Don't.

As An Actor, It's Much, Much Easier To Be Really Nasty To Someone That You Really Like.

With Any Role, You're Extending Yourself And Acting Out Things That Never Happened To You.

I Truly Think Any Preparation You Do Only Helps And Adds Dimension And Complexity To The Work [as An Actor].

Chris Hemsworth Is Like Christopher Reeve In That He Can Do Two Things: He Can Wear A Big Red Cape Without A Shred Of Self-consciousness. But He's Also Funny As Hell, And He's So Sweet. So With All The Fish-out-of-water Stuff, He's So Funny. So He Does Almost Two Jobs In A Way.

One Of The Great Flaws That We All Share Is That We Think Everyone Else Is Cooler, Everyone Else Is Sexier; Everyone Else Has All The Answers. That Was Me Too.

Ancient Societies Had Anthropomorphic Gods: A Huge Pantheon Expanding Into Centuries Of Dynastic Drama; Fathers And Sons, Martyred Heroes, Star-crossed Lovers, The Deaths Of Kings - Stories That Taught Us Of The Danger Of Hubris And The Primacy Of Humility.

The 60s Had Completely Changed How People Conceived Of Their Lives And Their Habits And Their Identities.

Honestly, I’m Happiest When I’m With My Best Friend And We’re Just Laughing About Life And Times, There Is Nothing Greater Than Friendship In This World. And That Kind Of Sort Of Mutual Acceptance ; To Feel Known And Understood By People And To Feel Like You Know And Understand Them Back Is All You Can Ask For.

America And Europe Are So Different In The Way They Conceive Of Themselves And Art And Cinema.

I'm Grateful For People Who Have Believed In Me When Others Might Not Have.

What Le Carré Is So Good At Is Unpicking Something Very Specific About Englishness. That Is Almost Part Of Why I Think He Wrote The Novel. You Can Feel Le Carré's Anger That Someone Who Has Had The Benefits Of An English Education And An English Upbringing Is Using That Privilege To Basically Do The Worst Things Imaginable. There Is An Anger In The Book About That.

The Language Of Digital Communication Is A Language We Don't Understand In A Way. People Say The Internet Is Like The Wild West In That It's Lawless And We Haven't Worked Out How To Make It Structured Or Moral.

Just Because You're Good In Something Doesn't Mean You'll Necessarily Be Good In Something Else. You Just Try And Chase Opportunities That You Fall In Love With Or That Inspire You And Keep Doing The Work.

Falling In Love

My Father And I Used To Tussle About Me Becoming An Actor. He's From Strong, Presbyterian Scottish Working-class Stock, And He Used To Sit Me Down And Say, 'you Know, 99 Percent Of Actors Are Out Of Work. You've Been Educated, So Why Do You Want To Spend Your Life Pretending To Be Someone Else When You Could Be Your Own Man?'

We're All Flawed Heroes. Responsibility Is Power. Take Responsibility For The Consequences Of Your Actions, And The World Is Yours. Everything Is A Choice.

I Am Desperate To Do A Comedy Now.

Acting Takes A Degree Of Mutual Trust And Respect.

Trust And Respect

Tony Stark In 'iron Man' Helped Wider Audiences Finally Embrace The Enormous Talent Of Robert Downey Jr.

Since My Education, I've Done Quite Untraditional Things. There Are Very Few Etonians Who Went To Rada. And Far Fewer Etonians - Certainly When I Was There - Went To Cambridge. I Don't Know Whether It's The Same Now. Most People I Knew Went To Oxford, Because It Seemed More Of An Easy Bridge.

Every Time You Consider A Job, You Have To Check In With Your Inner Compass And Say, ‘does This Fit In With How I See What The Work Is For? Is This Going To Be Something Interesting And Valuable To Contribute To The World?’

One Of My New Year's Resolutions Was To Interact More With People. That Sounds Quite Technical, But Literally Face Time. Not Facetime, Because That's A Thing Now, But To Be In The Room With Someone. To Turn Your Phone Off. To Sit And Have Dinner And Just Be There With Somebody.

We All Have Two Lives. The Second One Starts When We Realize That We Only Have One

Sometimes Love Really Is Just That Simple.

Real Love Is Strange And Changeable… But Also Somehow Constant.

I Don't Want To Be Quoted As 'tom Hiddleston, Psychologist Says...' But There Is A Psychological Aspect To Being An Actor. We Are Particular Students Of Human Nature - Not Every Actor Is, Of Course, But That's What Fascinates Me About Being An Actor.

The Book [night Manager] Is Amazing. It Is Amazing To Act In Any Book Adaptation, Because A Book Gives You So Many Secrets And Details That Don't Necessarily Get Shot In An Adaptation. They Give You A Cushion Underneath Everything. The Detail In The Character, The Detail In The Tone.

I Was So Lucky Because What I Did In 'thor' Was I Built The Character From The Ground Up - The Foundations Of His Spirit, Really. He Was Someone Who Was Born With An Expectation That He Would One Day Be A King, Born With An Entitlement.

We Are What The Past Has Made Us. We Are What The Future Will Make Us. Live Now. Right Now.

I Personally Feel That People Feel Very Reassured By Nature Because It Makes Us Feel Small And That's A Good Thing For Human Beings And For Society.

Some Of The Greatest Actors Have Turned Superheroes Into A Serious Business: Michael Keaton And Jack Nicholson In Batman; Ian Mckellen And Patrick Stewart, The First Venerable Knights Of The X-men, Who Have Now Passed The Baton To Michael Fassbender And James Mcavoy.

If You Get Up In The Morning And Wear A Pair Of Shorts And A T-shirt And Some Flip-flops, It's A Signal That You Might Be Going To The Beach. If You Get Up In The Morning And You Wear A Breast Plate And A Back Plate And A Cape And A Pair Of Golden Satanic Horns On Your Head, It's Quite Clear That You're Doing Something Else.

I Love The Acting Community At Cambridge. It's Really Quite Committed And Serious, Since The Days Of Derek Jacobi And Ian Mckellen Right Through To Emma Thompson And Hugh Laurie.

As A Child, I Had A Deck Of Marvel Top Trumps. You Can Get Top Trumps With Racing Cars, Or Fighter Planes, Or Football Players... I Had All Of The Marvel Superheroes And Super-villains You Could Get, And I Used To Play Them With My Friends. They Were All Listed According To Their Height And Weight And Agility And Their Super-powers.

When People Don't Like Themselves Very Much, They Have To Make Up For It. The Classic Bully Was Actually A Victim First.

The Weird Thing About Serious Acting Is I've Always Done Impressions Of People, All My Life, And I Did The Thing Called A Balloon Debate. The Idea Is There's A Hot Air Balloon Traveling Across The Atlantic And It's Going Down And You Have To Give A Speech As To Why You Should Stay In The Balloon. Six People Are Going To Be Chucked Out And You Want To Stay.

Every Villain Is A Hero In His Own Mind.

I Try Not To Make Plans. God Always Laughs At Your Plans. I’m Going To Keep The Door Open, And Keep The Page Blank, And See What Gets Painted Upon It.

All Acting Is An Act Of Imagination. You Are Simply Conjuring Up Imaginary Circumstances In Your Mind And Responding Truthfully To Them.

There Is So Much Poverty And Desperation In South Sudan, And Yet Each Side Is Militarily Equipped.

Thor And Loki Are Defined By Each Other.

What I Learned In Guinea Is That We Are All Responsible For The State Of Our World. The World - And The System By Which We Trade, Share, Cooperate And Conflict - Is Clearly Not Working. We Are Only As Strong As Our Weakest Members. Unicef Is Run At Every Level By Strong, Relentlessly Energetic, Deeply Capable People Who Use That Strength, Energy And Capability To Help Those Who Need It Most: The Weakest, Most Disadvantaged Women And Children Of Our World. All I Can Do Now Is Help Make People Aware Of What Is Happening, Of What They Are Doing. That Is All That I Can Do. For Now.

Loki In 'thor' Is The Most Incredible Springboard Into A Sort Of Excavation Of The Darker Aspects Of Human Nature. So That Was Thrilling, Coming Back Knowing That I'd Built The Boat And Now I Could Set Sail Into Choppier Waters.

I Always Found The Extraordinary Loss Of Life In The First World War Very Moving. I Remember Learning About It As A Very Young Child, As An Eight- Or Nine-year-old, Asking My Teachers What Poppies Were For. Every Year The Teachers Would Suddenly Wear These Red Paper Flowers In Their Lapels, And I Would Say 'what Does That Mean?'

The Thing About Playing Gods, Whether You're Playing Thor And Loki Or Greco Roman Gods Or Indian Gods Or Characters In Any Mythology, The Reason That Gods Were Invented Was Because They Were Basically Larger Versions Of Ourselves.

Our Job Is To Represent The Truth Of Human Nature, Whether You're Playing A Tender Love Story That's Set In A Coffee Shop Or Whether You're In 'the Avengers,' Which Is Set In A Manhattan Which Is Exploding.

I'm An Actor, And Part Of My Joy And My Curiosity About The Job That I Do, Is That Actors Have The Privilege Of Exploring Human Nature In Different Ways.

Never Stop. Never Stop Fighting. Never Stop Dreaming. And Don’t Be Afraid Of Wearing Your Heart On Your Sleeve - In Declaring The Films That You Love, The Films That You Want To Make, The Life That You’ve Had, And The Lives You Can Help Reflect In Cinema. For Myself, For A Long Time… Maybe I Felt Inauthentic Or Something, I Felt Like My Voice Wasn’t Worth Hearing, And I Think Everyone’s Voice Is Worth Hearing. So If You’ve Got Something To Say, Say It From The Rooftops.

We're All Intrigued, In Our Civilized World That We Live In, And Curious About How We Would Get On, On An Undiscovered Island That Is Untouched By Man.

The Dream Is To Keep Surprising Yourself, Never Mind The Audience.

When A New Project Comes Along, I Want To Know That The Experience Is Going To Be Challenging And Exciting. Part Of Me Is Going To Be Drawn To Doing Something New And Also The Satisfaction Of Intellectual Curiosity.

You Can’t Really Legislate For The Decisions That Your Heart Makes.

I Wish We Could Be Decent To Each Other.

The Thing About Running Is, If I Run In The Morning Before Work, I Feel Like I'm Ahead Of The Day. Whatever Work I've Done In Terms Of Preparation Or Research Or Thinking About The Scene Or The Character, It All Kind Of Crystallizes In That Moment In The Morning. And Sometimes I Have The Best Ideas Then.

If You Are At A Boys' School, Especially, There Is A Level Of Bravado That You Have To Keep Up Otherwise You'll Get Picked On.

My Instinct Is To Keep People Guessing. I Think As An Actor Your Greatest Strength Is Your Versatility, I Suppose. The Blanker The Canvas, The Easier It Is To Project The Illusion Of A Character Onto It. I Think There Are Many Actors Who Do That Very Successfully.

Make Love, Not War. Unless You’re Loki, In Which Case: Do What You Want.

Actors In Any Capacity, Artists Of Any Stripe, Are Inspired By Their Curiosity, By Their Desire To Explore All Quarters Of Life, In Light And In Dark, And Reflect What They Find In Their Work. Artists Instinctively Want To Reflect Humanity, Their Own And Each Other's, In All Its Intermittent Virtue And Vitality, Frailty And Fallibility.

Without Revealing Too Much, There's A Specific Skill Set You Need To Be In Loki's Army - Let Me Know If You Have The Qualifications.

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.

N Our Increasingly Secular Society, With So Many Disparate Gods And Different Faiths, Superhero Films Present A Unique Canvas Upon Which Our Shared Hopes, Dreams And Apocalyptic Nightmares Can Be Projected And Played Out.

Secular Society

When You're Starting Out As An Actor People Are Very Interested In Who You Are Because They Want To Know Where They Can Put You. And Quite Often, And We're All Guilty Of This Is Our Lives, We Judge Very Quickly And We Pigeon-hole People Very Quickly Based On How They Look And How They Talk And How They Dress And We Think: "oh Yeah, We Know Who You Are."

I Have A Little Office In My House And It Is An Absolute Pigsty But I Know Exactly Where Everything Is And There Are Little Things Stuck All Over The Walls, And Papers In In-trays And Files I Have Saved On My Computer And Playlists I Have Made On My Itunes - Things That Take Me To A Place That I Think Is Appropriate.

I'd Love To See T'he Avengers' With Robert Downey, Jr. Playing Loki And Clark Gregg Playing 'thor' And I Play Captain America.

If You Play It Straight It's Funny - The Best Comedy Is Always Played Straight Down The Middle. The Adjustment Is Understanding From The Screenplay That A Moment Is Hilarious.

I Think That Is So Interesting. It Is Le Carré. There Must Be So Much Of Him When He Was Younger. He's An Interesting Character. I Don't Want To Say The Word "passive" Because There Is Something Very Active About The Way He Is Passive, If That Makes Any Sense: The Nature Of His Watching And His Listening Is Active. It Is Always So Alive Because He Is, Essentially, A Spy.

Never Stop. Never Stop Fighting. Never Stop Dreaming.

Never Stop Dreaming

Fame Is Weird And Amorphous And Unpredictable.

I Think The Early Years, The First Decade Of Your Life, Is The Most Formative In A Way.

I Think There's A Part Of All Of Us That Wonders How We Would Survive On An Island Untouched By Man. Even Better, An Island Untouched By Man And Inhabited By King Kong.

Don’t Judge People On Who They Used To Be. Allow Them To Be Who They Are Now.

Life Is Generally Pretty Damn Amazing If You Let It Be.

The Best Revenge Against Bullies Is Absolutely, Resolutely, Never To Let Them Change Who You Are. Know That Whatever Bullies Say Or Do - It Comes From Their Weakness, Not Yours.

We Should Just Thank Each Other For Our Time. For The Rest Of Our Lives.

Out Of 10 How Enthusiastic A Dancer Am I? 11

The Most Interesting Thing About Being Alive Is That There Is No Black And White; There Are Many Shades Of Gray.

Black And White

I Wish I Hadn't Worked So Hard; I Wish I'd Had The Courage To Live A Life True To Myself, Not The Life Others Expected Of Me; I Wish I'd Had The Courage To Express My Feelings; I Wish I Had Stayed In Touch With My Friends; And I Wish I Had Let Myself Be Happier. It's An Extraordinary List Of Getting In Your Own Way, Isn't It?

Heath Ledger's Performance In The Dark Knight Quite Simply Changed The Game. He Raised The Bar Not Just For Actors In Superhero Films, But Young Actors Everywhere; For Me. His Performance Was Dark, Anarchic, Dizzying, Free, And Totally, Thrillingly, Dangerous.

If You Look At All Of The Villains In The Course Of Human History, They've All Believed, Delusionally, In The Virtue Of Their Actions - Every Villain Is A Hero In His Own Mind.

I'm An Eternal Realist And The Success Rate For Being An Actor Is Pretty Low.

People Love Escapism And There Should Be A Place For It.

In The End, You Will Always Kneel.

Never, Ever, Let Anyone Tell You What You Can And Can't Do. Prove The Cynics Wrong. Pity Them For They Have No Imagination. The Sky's The Limit. Your Sky. Your Limit. Now. Let's Dance.

I'm Sure Favorite Moments In Movies Are Things That Just Happen Accidentally When The Camera Is There. You Have To Do All The Homework To Get Yourself Into The Period, The Costumes, The Style, The Voice, The Hairdo Or Whatever It Is, But Once You've Done All That Work, You Have To Kind Of Let It Go And Just Be There. If You're Always Thinking About It, It Just Looks A Bit Over-thought.

Truth In Drama Is Elusive. You Never Quite Find It, But The Search For It Is Compulsive.

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.

If The Loki In 'thor' Was About A Spiritual Confusion - 'who Am I? How Do I Belong In This World?' - The Loki In 'avengers' Is, 'i Know Exactly Who I Am, And I'm Going To Make This World Belong To Me.'

I Think Everyone Should Do What They Love Because It Will Never Feel Like Work That Way.

Everybody Is Great And The Chemistry Is Different With Everyone. That Is The Joy Of Acting - You Really Don't Know How It Is Going To Go Until You Turn Up. It's Like Playing Tennis, You Can't Plan For The Match You Are Going To Play Until You Are Actually Up Against Your Opponent And What Happens, Happens. That Is The Joy Of Being On Set.

I Think We All See Ourselves As The Heroes In Our Own Lives.

I Couldn't Possibly Tell You. But I Would Say Be Very Careful With Your Suppositions. People Are So Quick To Jump. That's What I Love About Playing The Character. People Are So Quick To Draw Conclusions About Who He Is. The Whole Thing About Loki Is That He's Dancing On This Liminal Line Between Redemption And Destruction. Just Be Very Careful About Drawing Conclusions Based On What You See.

I Thought Theater People Wouldn't See Me If I Hadn't Trained. I Didn't Want To Just Be The Brideshead Guy, To Spend The Rest Of My Life Wearing Waistcoats. I Got The Chance To Try Everything. Not Just Romeos, But Pimps And Grandfathers And Even One Role As A Woman In A Naomi Wallace Play Called Slaughter City.

I Feel So Grateful To My Mother And Father For A Happy Childhood. There Are Things I Now Understand That They Were Able To Give Me That Are Very Special.

I Think, Actually, That It's A Really Fascinating Time In History Because The Development Of Modern Technology And The Photographs The Satellites Were Taking From Space Were Mapping The Earth In A New Way, Making Us Feel Like The Globe We Inhabit Is Much Smaller Than Previously Conceived Of, In The Human Mind.

I Feel As Though The Cardboard Box Of My Own Reality Has Been Flattened And Blown Open. Now I Can See The Edge Of The World.

The World I've Grown Into At The Moment Is Becoming Increasingly More Disturbing And Unsettling.

Joanna Points Her Camera At A Section Of Society Unused To Having Cameras Pointed At It. But I Don't Know About Categorising Them In Terms Of Class; I'm A Bit Wary Of That. My Dad Is The Son Of A Shipbuilder.

I Fear Looking Back And Wishing I Had Done Things I Hadn't.

Well, I Think There Are No Villains In This World. There Are Just Misunderstood Heroes.

Everywhere There Is Inequality, Everywhere There Is Division, And I Worry About It. I Think Everybody Does.

It Is So Rare As An Actor To Be Allowed The Chance To Revisit A Role And To Go Back To A Character That You Already Built, And Lived Inside, And Understood. To Take It Further To Another Stage Is A Huge Privilege.

We're Travelling Through Space And Time, We're Dealing With Gods And Monsters, But At The Heart Of The Film, From My Perspective, Is A Family - A Father, Two Sons, Two Brothers, A Mother And The Fractious, Intimate Interaction That They Have.

The Best Comedy Is Always Played Straight Down The Middle.

I Suppose My Understanding Of Villains Is That They're Just People Who Are Infected By All Of The Darker Instincts - That They Haven't Got The Discipline To Make The Right Choices.

I've Always Loved King Kong. He's Like A Modern-day Myth, An Icon Of The Cinema.

If You Can Run Around The Corner And Say Hello To Someone Do That Instead Of Emailing. It's Always More Rewarding; The Connection Is Always More Authentic. If You've Got Something To Say And You Can Say It Someone's Face, It's So Much Better, Healthier.

True Love Is An Acceptance Of Someone Else For Who They Are.

Vietnam Is Absolutely Breathtaking. I've Never Been To That Part Of The World Before And It Is An Area Of Such Natural Beauty.

I Learn The Lines As Soon As I Can And Then The Challenge Really, For Filming, Is To Show Up And Be There And Respond To What's Around You. That's Where The Gold Dust Is. It's Really Strange, No Amount Of Preparation Will Help You With The Magic Of Spontaneity On The Day [of Filming].

It Sounds Cliched, But Superheroes Can Be Lonely, Vain, Arrogant And Proud. Often They Overcome These Human Frailties For The Greater Good.

I’d Like To Fight Everybody Who Wants To Make War On People. I’d Like To Fight Bullies, Actually. I’d Like To Stand Up To The Bullies In This World. I Was Actually Mugged Once In London, And I Was Completely Defenseless. They Came At Me With A… I Was Held At Knifepoint. And I Felt So Angry That I Let Them Do It And I Think I’d Like To Go Back And Say ‘look, It’s Okay’, And If They Tried To Stab Me, I Could Just Say ‘you Can Stop That Now’.

Once You've Seen Certain Things, The Moral Compunction Drives You To Act.

The Difference Between A Hero And A Villain Is That They Just Make Different Choices.

Love Your Life. Because Your Life Is What You Have To Give.

I Gave Myself Permission To Care, Because There Are A Lot Of People In This World Who Are Afraid Of Caring, Or Afraid Of Showing That They Care Because It's Uncool. It's Uncool To Have Passion. It's So Much Easier To Lose When You've Shown Everyone How Much You Don't Care If You Win Or Lose. It's Much Harder To Lose When You Show That You Care, But, You'll Never Win, Unless You Also Stand To Lose. Don't Be Afraid Of Your Passion.

Acting Is A Bit Like Tennis In That You Can't Really Do It On Your Own.

I Never Like To Make Plans. It's Nice To Just Hang.

What's My Guilty Pleasure? The Thing Is, I Never Feel Guilty About Pleasures.

Guilty Pleasure

Trending Author

Category