“People often ask me what I am afraid of,” Tom Hiddleston says. “And this is it. I am afraid of hysteria.”
We are talking about his new film High-Rise, adapted from J. G. Ballard’s dystopian novel, in which the debonair hero of The Night Manager sheds his fancy ways to go alarmingly feral.
The lives of group of people living in a tower block start to spin out of control.
In the opening scene, his character Laing – a doctor of
forensics – is seen cooking a dog in the basement of the luxury
apartment tower where he moved for peace and quiet only a couple of
months earlier.
As we shall soon see, his condo haven has become a
maelstrom of rape, murder and uncollected rubbish. Hysteria isn’t the
half of it.
Ballard wrote High-Rise in 1975, anticipating the property bubble by a good 40 years.
The
fortress of the title is divided along class lines, with the ordinary
middle-class families on the lower floors, the rich up in the sky and
the architect – played by an oleaginous Jeremy Irons – living in the
middle of a roof garden populated with white ponies. As the place
implodes, he just mixes more cocktails.
“I don’t know if Ballard ever uses this metaphor,” Hiddleston says,
“but we thought of it as a great ocean liner unlocked from the land and
therefore free to live by its own laws.”
For a few weeks,
shipboard fun-seekers could enjoy the temptations of all the food, drink
and sexual opportunity a ticket could buy. “What High-Rise
does is takes that temptation and doesn’t let go, so they realise what
it feels like to have this perpetual hangover from lack of inhibition.”
High-Rise is directed by Ben Wheatley, whose low-budget chillers Kill List, Sightseers and A Field in England are funny in a bleak, black way that usually divides audiences.
High-Rise steps up that tension; it chops its audiences into pieces.
When
the film is shown at the San Sebastian festival, one incensed
Venezuelan journalist starts berating Hiddleston for making a film that
forced her to walk out.
It takes all his formidable charm to
placate her, admitting that when he spent a day with a pathologist doing
autopsies to prepare for his role, he had to leave the room to vomit.
But
it is the central idea of both book and film, he goes on, that is so
challenging. “Which is that if we are left to our own devices, very much
like Lord of the Flies, without the civilising influence of society, we are animals. Or we might be.”
Actually,
all Wheatley’s films involve apparently ordinary people who suddenly
set about murdering each other; it’s his running gag. He laughs
convivially when I ask why. Isn’t life more or less like that? That is
how Ballard, whose life was overturned by the Second World War, seems to
have seen it.
“Not to put words into his mouth,” he says, “but I
think the fact Ballard was in that internment camp in Shanghai – that he
saw a society that looked at permanent meltdown in a matter of days –
informed all his work.
“I certainly felt it during the banking
crisis recently. When you go to the cashpoint and your card doesn’t work
any more, what happens then? And we came very close, didn’t we?
"You
know, I think we are all kind of complicit in this forced narrative
that it’s all going to be fine all of the time, but when you actually
take a split second to look at context and history you see it isn’t
fine, that we lurch from crisis to crisis. And I think that is what
Ballard is getting at in High-Rise. That there is a very thin crust on top of the madness.”
Madness has its own allure, of course. Take Wheatley’s fans: they are absolutely vehement in their support for High-Rise. And within the story, the building’s residents could leave if they wanted.
“That
was the important thing to me in writing the adaptation,” he says.
“It’s not that they get trapped in the building or that they can’t
escape, that they can’t call for help or that the phones get taken away.
They don’t want help. There is a moment when Tom [sic] is walking out and
just goes ‘hmm, no…’ and walks back in. They enjoy it.”
Sir Anthony Hopkins has joined fellow Thor cast members
Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston on the Brisbane set of the Marvel
superhero movie.
The 78-year-old actor, who plays Odin, father of
Hemsworth’s Thor and adoptive father of Hiddleston’s Loki in the film
series, arrived on the closed set for Thor: Ragnarok this morning.
Brisbane woman Jess Moller-Nielsen said Sir Anthony’s appearance came as a surprise to her and everyone else around watching.
“It
was just Thormazing. They were all keeping pretty low-key so I was
thrilled to see Chris and Tom this morning, but when Anthony Hopkins
came out of the hotel too I was just over the moon,” she said.
“He’s a brilliant actor, one of my favourites, and it was incredible to see him standing just a couple of metres away from me.
“To be honest I don’t know if anyone else realised it was Anthony Hopkins because I seemed to be the only one taking a photo.”
Today’s
filming for the upcoming Marvel superhero film is taking place down a
laneway, behind a black gate and underneath a white cover.
Queensland Police Service broke the news over social media, saying filming would take place on a closed set all week.
The
intersection was transformed into downtown New York City for the shoot,
complete with dozens of extras, yellow taxis, black and white police
cars, fire hydrants, and more.
Both Hemsworth and Hiddleston interacted with fans who gathered to
watch the action in the later part of the day, coming to meet the crowd
for selfies and some quick media interviews.
Mary Street has three lanes from Albert Street to Edward Street closed until 4:00am on Friday, August 26
Albert Street between Charlotte and Mary streets is closed until 11:59pm on Thursday, August 25
Esk Lane is closed between Mary Street and the end of the road until 8:00pm on Wednesday, August 31
Traffic,
deliveries, pedestrians and hotel guests will have access to businesses
during the closures, although there may be short delays for public
safety reasons.
Thor: Ragnarok will be released in cinemas in late 2017.
I received a lot of messages for links to videos and downloads recently so why not just combine everything together so everyone can have some hiddles in one post?
I will make this as a page on my blog for people who want to refer back to it just in case they lose it in their likes or on their blogs themselves.
If you guys have any links you would like to share as well feel free to message me and i’ll add it to my page.
– He jumped up and down like a child before every take
– Was doing the Chris “throw my head back, grab my boob” Evans laugh all day
– Would wave at the fans and come stand in the street in between takes
– Spent a good 30 mins going around to all the clusters of fans. He took as many selfies as he could with the people at the front, and was throwing posters and badges and lollies to the people at the back that he couldn’t reach
– Even though it was hot and they had been filming all day, he was still smiling and acknowledging all the fans
– He would say hello to everyone on set. Even talked to the extras and some random police officers.
– He is every bit as amazing as you would hope he would be
Bonus: he was dressed in the most fine as fitted black suit and he just looked so gooooood. Y’all ain’t ready
That’s our man right there ❤
Yep, that’s the Tom we know and love. We’ve seen it; believe it.
Slutty Yorick 