Tom Hiddleston plays a better actor than he is. That might mean he’s a good actor. He is gossiped about as if his every move is part of a facade. The Daily Mail wonders, given his reticent responses to questions about he and Taylor Swift, whether his sloppiness is an act, part of a story he and Swift are weaving, using the press to generate hype about an as-yet undisclosed music video. This is an extraordinary level of speculation. The press seems to believe they are being manipulated by a mastermind, Hiddleston or Swift.
I can’t think of a better metaphor for romantic love than working on a secret music video. I can understand Hiddleston, if he is not a good actor playing a bad actor, not wanting to talk about “work,” as he refers to his relationship with Swift to an interviewer. Work is too personal.
Jean-Luc Picard is the perfect Englishman because in his heart that he never talks about, he is French. Or perhaps Patrick Stewart is an Englishman playing a Frenchman playing an Englishman. Or in the future the British Isles and France have merged into a bunch of English-speaking, grape-revering, Earl Gray enthusiasts? Was one pro-Brexit minister thinking of Captain Picard when he said that he hoped to one day to return to the EU, under different circumstances?
The Night Manager gives us a Tom Hiddleston action figure. A powerful physique has an odd way of looking out of the control of the person who has it. Not that Hiddleston is a muscleman; he just has an well-proportioned torso, with long arms and legs that feel like they are ideal for posing. The show is about a man of action whose sinews are all double binds. Half the show consists in scrutinizing his face being scrutinized. At any moment, one feels, he could betray the fact that he is a spy. But is he? At no time does the show or Hiddleston give us the opportunity to imagine his character has depth at all. Perhaps every layer of his personality is a facade, just as tabloids speculate about the actor. Whose layers? Tom’s, Jonathan’s, Andrew’s?
