Hey, Tom. How you doing?
I'm all right, mate. How are you? Yeah, not too bad.
Thank you.
The sun's finally come out in London, and it wasn't an hour or so ago.
It was very, very gray.
Everyone else is in London yesterday.
I take it you're not?
No, I'm in Spain.
I'm shooting a TV on set, so.
Yeah,
yeah, it's my day.
Listen, it's my day off, and it's a beautiful day, and I'm in so doing
great.
So you're working on the day off
there. Well, thank you for your time.
Anyway, I appreciate
your time.
Congratulations on the show.
Thanks, man.
What's episode one yesterday morning before I spoke to your lovely costars
and I really enjoyed it, and I don't like I'm not a fan of Blitz
and things, so I'm take I like taking my time.
So I'll go back to episode two
very soon, but
lots there's a lot to discuss in episode one, particularly with with you.
This is this is quite a roll.
This is quite a thing to get your teeth into.
What was what was the initial attraction for you for the for the
for the part and also for the for the show in general?
Well, the show in general, I just love the scripts.
I thought they were just brilliant.
Anya Reiss the showrunner.
You know, she's like,
I think she's like 27, 28 or maybe even younger.
When she first started writing this,
I know that she was 29 when we were showrunning.
You know, I went to Sony, I mean, and she's from Brixton she's South London.
She's, she's, she's in, it's got an edge to her.
And it was just thrilling to be on a period show
that's told through the gates of someone like Anya.
And it feels punky, you know,
it doesn't feel like a
kind of bog standard
period drama.
It's definitely got a kind of edge to it.
And so I read the scripts and I was just I just absolutely loved them.
I I thought they were so funny.
They were so robust.
It's so intense.
And every character is really fully formed and complex,
which is rare, you know,
and in terms of Thomas,
he is easily the most complex character I've ever played.
You know, he's
he's passionate he's a hothead.
He's kind of charismatic.
And fun to be around,
but he's also morally really suspect and and makes choices
that are really hard to kind of like understand to come to terms with.
And so it was really, really challenging
but very fun to kind of get inside the mind of someone like that.
It wasn't always
boys, wasn't always enjoyable, but
but I enjoyed the work.
Yeah.
I did mention that
it kind of been different for you in some respects in testing.
You did did you find this was a more challenging than any
you've done before, given that?
He's got a lot of complexity and a lot of layers and a lot of things
that over the course of the season you kind of find out about him?
Yeah,
I mean, every, every character has its challenges, you know,
but I think that what I've found most challenging about him
was some of the actions that he takes and the things that I have to
play later on in the show were hard.
And it was,
yeah, when you're playing someone like him,
who makes choices that I
would not make, you know, or I would certainly
be feminine again, you could say
that in the inside the psyche of that person
and make them the hero and defend them and not judge them is really difficult.
And I hope that I've done a okay job with it.
You know, of not pulling back,
you know, really kind of like committing to
him as a person.
Despite the abhorrent things that he does at times.
Yeah, absolutely.
I spoke to Jamie Blackley and Jessica Raine and Alicia von Rittenberg yesterday.
Oh, lovely. Lovely. People.
And they all spoke about the kind of
emergence of a different word, but stepping
in, almost stepping back in time when you're stepping onto the set
because you guys are in these in these castles and in these places.
And I respect the candles or go in and, you know,
you didn't have your mobile phones or that kind of stuff.
Is that is that a kind of a good thing in the sense that you're kind of able
to immerse yourself in that in that world?
Completely for however long you are?
Therefore, it's absolutely amazing and I'm not sure whether they
spoke about this, but this is something that was really exciting for me.
Is that,
you know, often on a period drama,
you've got your lights and the color coverage and the sets up.
So quite normal, you know, kind of you're over the shoulder.
You need to show it
and it's all lit, you know? But
Adolpho Veloso, this young, deep,
deep Brazilian and director Justin Chadwick,
I think they really took the script, which, as I said, was kind of like Punky.
And they were like, this embrace this.
That's this is not your traditional
period drama.
It's it's got a it's got an edge to it.
And so the sets they built have ceilings on them.
Normally you would have ceilings that you can light from above.
They shot everything by candlelight, everything light through the windows.
And there would be times when Justin, the director, would be like, OK, it's run.
The lines would do that.
Then it'll be like, OK, let's just shoot it with their rehearsals.
You know, we would just go don't we would have the camera on his shoulder
and he'd just kind of like roam around and find moments.
So you never knew when you were going to be on camera.
And honestly, it's like
you made like Tom
just disappears completely because you have to be in this world.
And the only thing that's there is a cameraman and the sound of prey
and that's it, you know, and it's,
it's so fun to be a part of.
And I think that that energy really comes out in the show and it looks
completely different than any period drama I've I've ever been involved in.
Yeah, it certainly does.
I mean, you touched on what we just saw.
What an amazing ensemble.
I mean, these these shows tend to get such amazing ensemble as whether it's
seasoned actors, people from the theater, from people, young, upcoming people.
There's a really good mix in this show.
Obviously, led by at least here we've seen a couple of times.
Was it our audience it for you as an actor?
When you get to work with people like that,
they've all come from different backgrounds
and you all come together to tell this, tell the story.
It's so great.
I mean, there are so many actors in the show that I
have been massive fans
of and really would love to have worked with and
you know, some really celebrated theater actors, for example,
and I've done a play, I would be terrified to go on the stage,
but I have so much like awe and respect for these actors, and then to have
the kind of like honor to work with them is just like thrilling.
I feel so, so, so lucky.
And the cast is just so good
in the show, I think.
Yeah, it was awesome to watch them work.
So yeah, I feel really lucky and just kind of
like being my small part and, you know,
yeah, and I mean, there's a lot of there's so much content out there now.
It's almost like in my job, impossible to keep up.
And for you guys, it's good in terms of there's lots of simple blood work
going around and all that kind of stuff, which is I guess it's kind of good.
But what would you say to people who
maybe come across this one and want to give it a go?
What would you say to them that maybe they why they why they should give it
a go in among the plethora of stuff that's out there?
Yeah, totally.
Like there's so much choice.
I think that if you like period dramas, I think you'll love it
because it's it's a really good period.
And I mean, you know, like, I'm not I'm not just doing some like sales pitch.
I really am genuinely very, very proud of it.
But I think even if you're not interested in period dramas,
this show is really, really engaging.
It's, it's got so much energy and it's so alive, it's so contemporary.
It's scary.
And it deals with complex,
modern themes in a way that is so nuanced.
And I think that it's going to
I hope that it's going to create a lot of conversation,
especially conversation for women and women.
Who are fighting to figure out their place
in a very male dominated world.
And that is Elizabeth's experience.
You know, and I think that it's telling that Anna, who,
as I said, was 28 when she was writing it, she's
she's a writer theater writes in a very male dominated world,
she had her first play on when she was 18 at the Royal Court.
And you can kind of feel so much of Anna in Elizabeth
and I think
that I think that people will watch it and see a lot of themselves in it.
And also it's just fun to watch.
Yeah.
Yeah as it's as as complex and as rewarding
as the characters it I think which is which is always which is always good.
Tom, thanks so much for your time.
Absolute pleasure talking to you.
Succession the Tudor succession.
Yeah.
Hey, that's not a bad elevator pitch to me.
It's a good one, too.
So thank you so much for your time.
I appreciate that. Thank you so much. You're.