I Thought You’d Never Ask!

So a friend asked me why I like Hiddles (Tom Hiddleston) so much. Since the man has taken over my Tumblr, my mind, and my life, I guess an explanation is in order. So, in no particular order, and behind a cut because somehow there are a lot of pictures and stuff… (So there’s a clip from Thor and one from Avengers and if you don’t want spoiled don’t click play, hmm?)

Tom Hiddleston is adorable. This grin? Makes me grin.

He’s highly intelligent. (KD don’t fall for dummies.)

He attended The Dragon School in Oxford and then went on to study at Eton College. He studied for his Classics degree at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, earning a double first. In 2005, he graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

I could listen to his voice for ten years non-stop.

Preview of The Red Necklace read by Tom Hiddleston

Twenty if he throws in lots of Shakespeare on the spur of the moment as he’s known to do.

 Monologue from Henry V.

He speaks Spanish and French with swoon-worthy ability. He quotes Greek classics in Greek. Here he is helping Benedict Cumberbatch with pronunciation. He’s been heard to spout Latin, Russian, and German. And (so I hear, but have not located) Elvish and Klingon. Which makes him a GEEK, my kind of people!

He laughs a LOT, and he’s not afraid to be silly, which is a rare and marvelous quality in a man.

Velociraptor impression!

He’s kind. Some reporter at an awards show, standing out on the red carpet and freezing his butt off, tweeted that Tom Hiddleston should bring him soup. TOM HIDDLESTON BROUGHT THE MAN SOUP.

He’s an incredibly talented actor, AND incredibly humble. Not a common combo either.

He looks so damn smart all the time.

No, I mean…

Except when he’s all filthy and beat-up and still looks amazing.

 

He plays guitar and piano. So far.

His hands.

His leeggggsssss…

His Loki.

From Thor:

From Avengers (Let me tell you this scene is utter porn to me: his walk, the tux, I even love how he enjoys seeing everyone run from him.)

 

I also, really and for true, feel like he’s improving my writing. I watch interviews to feed my obsession and he talks about characters and craft and emotion and I think about these things.

Loki’s heart is broken but around his broken heart he’s built the armor of menace and mischief and self-possession so he’s become incredibly destructive and incredibly powerful. And all of his megalomania, his credentials as a badguy, come from that same, damaged place.

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.

“‘Suffering with’ means taking on another’s suffering as your own, a deep kind of understanding and connectedness with another human being. Having compassion for people as a whole, for the whole palette of humanity, all of us with all strengths, weaknesses, our flaws, our nobility and fragility.”

I think we need superheroes to be reminded of the primacy of generosity and kindness and humility. Even when I watched this film… I love Loki, but I’m punching the air when the hero’s winning. I’m clapping along with everybody else when I get Hulk smashed. There’s something really innately inherited, I think, about redemption. We all are just intensely moved by it. And superheroes offer that redemption narrative really cleanly, I think.

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.

I’m resonating with that one today. If you’ve been on this blog a bit, you know I tend to fangirl. It’s one obsession after another around here! I don’t know if it’s come through (perhaps in my multiple manifestos proclaiming I don’t care) but I do tend to be embarrassed about it. To feel a bit…silly. I’m too old to be falling for every new thing to come down the pike!

Only screw that, because Tom Hiddleston said I can. He said it’s where my art comes from and I’m supposed to do that.

Whee!

The dream is to keep surprising yourself, never mind the audience.

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.

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.

So, umm…yeah. That’s why. New life goal? Write a role that, when they offer it to Tom Hiddleston, he can’t possibly resist it.