“I just feel so lucky because I’ve always wanted to be in different kinds of things, to play different kinds of roles,” says actor Tom Hiddleston as we sit down to record an episode of ‘Awards Chatter.’ At the moment, the 35-year-old Brit is not only living out that dream, but receiving major plaudits for the way in which he’s done so. For his portrayal of the iconic country music singer Hank Williams in the Sony Classics biopic I Saw the Light, he is the subject of Oscar buzz. For his performance as John Le Carre‘s fictional spy Jonathan Pine in the AMC limited series The Night Manager, he is generating Emmy buzz. And for an hour, he discussed those projects, and his journey to them, on this podcast.
Meanwhile, Hiddleston has become the subject of increasingly loud speculation that he may be called on to succeed Daniel Craig as James Bond — and his excellence as Pine in The Night Manager only added fuel to that fire. “I’m playing a former British soldier who becomes an agent for MI6 who does some very bad things for the greater good … and the world that that spy occupies is very seductive … but I do think they are different characters,” Hiddleston says. “I understand where the comparisons come from, and they’re enormously flattering, but I don’t think the position [of 007] is vacant, truthfully,” he says with a chuckle. “He’s James Bond, and until further notice there is no other.” (That being said, Hiddleston was seen this week in London meeting with Sam Mendes, director of the last two Bond films and the next one.)
Apart from Kong: Skull Island (due out March 10, 2017) and Thor: Ragnarok (Nov. 3, 2017), Hiddleston says, “I’m not quite sure what’s next,” but adds, “I have some big dreams and some big plans.”
said the sunset in the evening was the lonesomest time of the day, and I wanted to know why, why he felt so alone.””]
