Tom Hiddleston Quote
When I’m given a role, the first thing I do is read the play over and over again. I scour the script and write down everything the character says about himself and everything that everyone else says about him. I immerse myself in my character and imagine what it might be like to be that person.When I played Cassio in Othello I imagined what it would be like to be a lieutenant in the Venetian navy in 1604. I sat down with Ewan McGregor and Chiwetel Ejiofor and together we decided that Othello, Iago and Cassio had soldiery in their bones.I took from the script that Cassio was talented and ambitious, with no emotional or physical guard - and that’s how I played the part.For me, acting is about recreating the circumstances that would make me feel how my character is feeling. In the dressing room, I practise recreating those circumstances in my head and I try to not get in the way of myself. For example, in act two of Othello, when Cassio is manipulated to fight Roderigo and loses his rank, some nights I would burst into tears; other nights I wouldn’t but I would still feel the same emotion, night after night. Just as in life, the way we respond to catastrophe or death will be different every time because the process is unconscious.By comparison, in Chekhov’s Ivanov I played the young doctor, Lvov. Lvov was described as a prig and a bigot … uprightness in boots … tiresome … completely sincere. His emotions were locked away. I worked around the key phrase: Forgive me, I’m going to tell you plainly.I practised speaking gravely and sincerely without emotion and I actually noticed how that carried over into my personal life: when I played the open-hearted Cassio, I felt really free; when I played the pent-up Lvov, I felt a real need to release myself from the shackles of that character.
When I’m given a role, the first thing I do is read the play over and over again. I scour the script and write down everything the character says about himself and everything that everyone else says about him. I immerse myself in my character and imagine what it might be like to be that person.When I played Cassio in Othello I imagined what it would be like to be a lieutenant in the Venetian navy in 1604. I sat down with Ewan McGregor and Chiwetel Ejiofor and together we decided that Othello, Iago and Cassio had soldiery in their bones.I took from the script that Cassio was talented and ambitious, with no emotional or physical guard - and that’s how I played the part.For me, acting is about recreating the circumstances that would make me feel how my character is feeling. In the dressing room, I practise recreating those circumstances in my head and I try to not get in the way of myself. For example, in act two of Othello, when Cassio is manipulated to fight Roderigo and loses his rank, some nights I would burst into tears; other nights I wouldn’t but I would still feel the same emotion, night after night. Just as in life, the way we respond to catastrophe or death will be different every time because the process is unconscious.By comparison, in Chekhov’s Ivanov I played the young doctor, Lvov. Lvov was described as a prig and a bigot … uprightness in boots … tiresome … completely sincere. His emotions were locked away. I worked around the key phrase: Forgive me, I’m going to tell you plainly.I practised speaking gravely and sincerely without emotion and I actually noticed how that carried over into my personal life: when I played the open-hearted Cassio, I felt really free; when I played the pent-up Lvov, I felt a real need to release myself from the shackles of that character.
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About Tom Hiddleston
He started his film career in the Joanna Hogg films Unrelated (2007) and Archipelago (2010). In 2011, Hiddleston portrayed F. Scott Fitzgerald in Woody Allen's romantic comedy Midnight in Paris, and appeared in Steven Spielberg's War Horse. That year, he won the Empire Award for Best Male Newcomer and was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award. He continued working with auteurs in independent films including Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea (2012), Jim Jarmusch's romantic vampire film Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) and Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak (2015). He also starred in Ben Wheatley's action film High Rise, and played the troubled country music singer Hank Williams in the biopic I Saw The Light. The film Kong: Skull Island (2017) marked his first big-budget leading role outside the MCU.
Hiddleston made his stage debut in Journey's End in 1999. He continued acting in theatre including the West End productions of Cymbeline (2007) and Ivanov (2008). He won the Olivier Award for Best Newcomer in a Play for his role in Cymbeline and was also nominated for the same award for his role as Cassio in Othello (2008). Hiddleston starred as the title character in a production of Coriolanus (2013–14), winning the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor and receiving a nomination for the Olivier Award for Best Actor. He made his Broadway debut in a 2019 revival of Harold Pinter's classic drama Betrayal, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.
Hiddleston's also known for his performances in television including his part in the 2012 BBC series The Hollow Crown's Henry IV and Henry V. Hiddleston starred in and executive-produced the AMC / BBC limited series The Night Manager (2016), for which he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and won his first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film.