I think it might look weird on screen – some people do, don’t they? ”Says Victoria Tom Hughes starred as Prince Albert in the ITV hit drama. He talks about a fact that is never recognized, and he talks about it; He enjoys nothing but privacy. When he dated up with his co-star Jenna Coleman, who played the young Victoria, and the show rocked seven million viewers, he flew under the radar. “People come to us and say,‘ I love you Victoria‘, “He says.” Then ask me,’ Can you take our photo? ‘ They don’t know who I am and I think the mustache helped. ”
The 35-year-old speaks to me from his home in Illington, his strong northwest accent and trademark sliding edge – the last remnants of anything recognizable about the German character. He shows me his “music dungeon”: an unseen room with a drum kit and various guitars hanging on the wall next to a structured Oasis poster. Hughes, whose “first love” guitar was on an indie band called the Quintes, remembers lying in bed at night at five “trying to pull my little finger out of its socket” so he can reach the fifth string; His hands are not big enough to hold guitar lessons.
But after he left Rada in 2008, he played his first lead role in a 2010 film, but as a deeply wounded rebel Cemetery Junction, Responsible for acting. His latest character is a Demon in the second series of the fantasy series The invention of witches, Which has been on Sky One since January 8th. It wasn’t long before the first episode we encounter Hughes ’Mercury character – Elizabeth playwright Christopher Marlowe (Kid) – who speaks from the shadows in a catchy stressful tone. His dear friend who loves Kid, the vampire Matthew Clairmond (Matthew Goode played with amazing brilliance), has returned a few hundred years later. To Kit’s horror, he is with his new wife, a witch who is not called Diana.
The couple goes to London from modern times to find a lost manuscript and find a witch teacher for Diana, but Kitty’s jealousy bubbles up until he conspires to kill her.
Tom Hughes as Kid Marlowe in ‘A Discovery of Witches’
(Bad wolf products)
“I think I made a choice Victoria To try a new genre, this thing came up; Witches, Demons and Vampires, ”says Hughes, putting an elastic band around his head and leaving his eyes. “I thought it was the right opportunity. I was drawn to characters based on some social reality – not that everything is meant to be Jimmy McGovern things – but I wanted to know what it was like to get into pure escapism. But, equally, the fantastic thing about this part is that Kid is a real person. ”
In Love: Hughes as Prince Albert and Jenna Coleman as Victoria on ITV’s hit drama ‘Victoria’
(Rex)
Hughes has a penchant for playing complex psychological characters, often incarnate, intelligent and secluded – even dangerous. He is the BBC’s mysterious MI5 spy Joe Lambe Sports In 2015, and the beautiful sociologist James in the BBC thriller Paula In 2017. Magnetic and Abuse as Julian Luscombe in BBC drama Dancing on the Edge In 2013, about a black jazz band in London in the 1930s, he was a complex mix of emotional damage and privilege.
Hughes seeks complex roles. He stars next year in the psychological horror film Widow Eric Black, who is on the verge of rupture Shepherd, As well as bisexual poet Robert Graves starring in the film Prize winner. But in real life there is nothing dark, volatile, or preconceived about Hughes.
Unlike his “emotionally oppressed” characters, he says he “carries a lot of pain.” Growing up in Cheshire with his bass player dad, social worker mum and older brother, he was always encouraged to express his feelings. Back then, Hughes had no interest in watching TV or movies – “I wanted to climb trees and listen to Oasis” – and partly appreciated the lack of this vision with the fact that he was not designed because of the toxic masculinity displayed on screen. He was sent to the local extensive Upton-by-Chester High School, where his acting interest sparked when he was asked to play Dracula in a 12-year-old school play. This led him to attend local theater groups and in Liverpool. Everyman Youth Theater, before Rada.
Hughes as Bruce, Felicity Jones as Julia, Christian Cook as Freddie, and Jack Doolan at the ‘Graveyard’ in 2010 for Paul / Snork
(Rex)
Did he ever feel like a foreigner in a public-school dominated profession? “No, not in my experience,” he says, while acknowledging that it is “not a reflection of public experience.” “I’m a northern guy” I didn’t turn to Rada. I do not identify with any class because the whole class system is crazy and outdated. I never thought I would take the north-south divisions. ”
He doesn’t think there are always equal opportunities though. “Art is so unworthy; It’s not like you’re an athlete who is fast. It is about expression, it must be inclusive and representative of all in the community. I don’t know if it will always be, chances are definitely not. If you leave drama school, you have to earn money; If you have a safety net behind you, it is easy to take risks. ”
He mentions four big public school actors – presumably Eddie Redmain, Damien Lewis, Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch – but he will not name them. “The truth is they are the best actors. If you are a good actor, you are a good actor. But good actors get the chance across the board. The problem is that adults try to carry blocks that prevent them from having the opportunity to express it. We don’t want to miss the next Pete Postlight White. ”
He talks about his idol; Postlight White is from Cheshire and is an Oscar nominated star In the name of the Father He was the one who inspired Hughes to the depth of emotion he portrays on screen. Hughes admits he wants to act in more emotionally open roles. “I think there should be more characters across the spectrum who aren’t stuck on certain ideas of gender,” he says. “But without a doubt, I like to play emotionally oppressed roles.”
If he could pick and choose his next character, he says it would really “show all the depths and changes of being a human being in the modern world – completely himself.” But acting has its limitations. “The world is changing, everyone feels things, communicates, talks about things and sharing things doesn’t show weakness,” he says. “But if you’re playing a character like Albert who lived in the 1800s, you have to be true to a time when it wasn’t like that.”
Hughes, who came to the cast as “psychologically maniacal”, said the problem with younger characters is that “they are often one dimensional”. “A 22-year-old, in general, has no life experience of someone 35 or 45 and over.” But, when he is drawn to complex characters, he says, “The difficulty is, when those experiences were intense in the beginning, unfortunately, they could be painful. Through proxy, a lot of the characters I play carry pain and have a certain amount of repression to survive. ”
Although Hughes’ next stage is to grow into more mature roles with “humility, humanity and honesty”, he is still experimenting – not just by playing a daemon. He has branched out into Hollywood and co-starred Infinite, Paramount’s science fiction drama, directed by Antoine Fua and starring Mark Wallberg. It was released in August, but was delayed until May 2021 due to the Govt epidemic. He can’t tell me about his character Abel because the film is secretly hidden.
In 2015, Hughes played the mysterious MI5 spy Joe Lambe in the BBC’s The Game.
(BBC)
But as happens with Warner Bros., which plans to release bigger films on HBO Max, I ask him how he would feel if his movie premiere went straight to streaming his film at the same time. “I definitely don’t want to live in a world where movies are only digested in your own time,” he says. “There’s nothing like being in a cinema.”
He remembers what he saw Shame At Curzon in Soho. “The film is over, no one is moving. There was constant silence; You can hear a pin drop for five minutes. Then suddenly people started clapping. The creators of this may not even listen to you, but it is an expression of appreciation. Part of moving it is a shared experience. ”
‘A Discovery of Witches’ has been on Sky One since January 8th
