and Kate Moss. His shoes sold for £4,500 (more than
anyone else’s). He is very appreciative of the interest, while
simultaneously being uncomfortable with the idea of fame.
‘Do I like it? It’s sort of inconsequential in a way, a weird
corollary to everything else I’ve done. I cannot tell you how
surprising it is. It’s like, really? REALLY? I honestly try not
to think about it too much.’
We are nestled under a heater in the beer garden
of a north-west London pub on a chilly December evening.
Hiddleston is drinking whiskey, which is part of my cunning
strategy to break him down – he has always given me
the impression of being very prepared in interviews – but
it doesn’t work. After five shots, he remains entirely in
control.
Nonetheless, he is rather adorable: ferociously
bright (he went to Eton, then Cambridge, where he got
a double first), earnest (‘I know. I’m sorry. I can’t help it’),
obliging, and old-fashioned. Partly that’s his classically
handsome face, partly it’s his impeccable manners, and
partly it’s the way he constructs his sentences.
Describing his favourite book, William Boyd’s Any
Human Heart, for instance, he says, ‘Like all life, it contains
multitudes’; or, on opening up to new people, ‘I fear I am
initially quite private.’ When he is sure of his subject –
talking about work, family, culture – he is eloquent and
assertive. When he is less certain – typically on the subject
of himself – his voice rises slightly
In inadvertent questions: ‘I’m solitary [but] I don’t
think that’s a good thing, I think I’m better in company?’ Or:
‘I know that there’s this thinking capacity, which is possibly
not a good thing?’
Tom William Hiddleston is 33 (on 9 February, to be
20
precise), a middle child with one sister 15 months older,
and another five years younger. His childhood sounds like
a simple, pleasurable place. ‘I have memories of climbing
trees and watching The Snowman, with David Bowie
introducing it in his snowman scarf.’ He starts to laugh.
‘When I actually learned who David Bowie was, I was like,
“That’s the man from The Snowman”. And ‘I believe in the
strength and intelligence and sensitivity of women. My
mum is a strong woman and