‘Father and husband were his primary roles in life’
Todd Field
Anyone who had the great fortune to pretend with Tom Wilkinson will tell you his art was only surpassed by his immense heart. The reader may scoff at this statement, wise to a PR environment where everyone loves each other, but that is the truth. Of course, truth evaporates with the telling of it – and you can’t always get it back. But I will tell you this.
Someone else was supposed to play the role of Matt Fowler in In the Bedroom and fell out three weeks before shooting. I rang Leon Vitali and said “I’m looking for a powerful middle-aged American to play the lead in this movie, someone audiences don’t know.” After acknowledging the lunacy of this wish, Leon said, “There’s a brilliant actor Stanley [Kubrick] loved and always wanted to work with. He’s British but I’m certain he could pull it off.” And that was it. Tom was cast. I had yet to see The Full Monty or Shakespeare in Love, so watching Tom in rehearsal was in actual fact the first time I’d seen him act. But it wasn’t acting. He was this father, was this husband and both, I came to realise, were his primary roles in life.
Tom was unwilling to discuss the psychology of a character. Books and poetry all day long. Head stuff forget it. He broke a role down very much like a musician. Using rhythm, and volume, and scoring his physical actions to the nth degree. He chastised me for gently saying “Whenever you’re ready,” insisting he was like a horse in the gate and I should simply shout “action.” Not fussy. Line perfect. Followed direction. When you’d ask him to adjust something his response arrived in four simple words, “I can do that.” And he did, but so much better and smarter than you could have ever imagined. Tom made everyone around him better and smarter.
We really didn’t get to know each other until after the filming. And this, only after begging him to attend Sundance, or show up at the Russian Tea Room after winning best actor from the New York Film Critics Circle. Tom didn’t like being away from “the girls” even if it meant his work would be feted. The girls being his wife, the great actor Diana Hardcastle, and their lovely daughters Alice and Molly. Family was everything.
Tom often called concerned I had yet to make another film and to offer support. Like a father worried about his son. A father very much like Matt Fowler. Warm and genuine. Making you feel like you were properly looked after. That someone you held in the highest regard – cared.
It’s hard to imagine a world without Tom Wilkinson. There is no understudy, no Wilkinson-type. There was only one. Tomorrow starts without him, and we’ll be the poorer for it.
‘Tom brought the glitch of humanity to everything he did’
Tony Gilroy, director of Michael Clayton and Duplicity
I’m forever in Tom Wilkinson’s debt. I couldn’t get Michael Clayton off the ground.
I’d spent five years chasing money and actors. I’d been granted a meeting to convince George Clooney that, inexperienced as I was, I might prove a trustworthy collaborator. The small talk evaporated and the interview began: “So who do you see for Arthur Edens?”
Three weeks later, I was in a restaurant in Montreal, with a go-movie in my pocket, offering Tom the part before we’d ordered dinner. Was he surprised at being so impulsively courted? He played it that way – taken aback, modest, baffled by our enthusiasm – and I believed him. Thinking back on it now, I’m not so sure.
We were spoiled on Michael Clayton and, again, on Duplicity; spoiled scene-after-scene, take-after-take, by Tom’s unshakeable ability to be natural no matter how outrageous the demand – stripping naked in a midwest deposition, burning through mad monologues, brawling with Paul Giamatti in slow-motion on a rain-swept airstrip, surrendering to a wordless, one-take, pas de trois assassination. Tom arrived every day with a gentle, slightly bewildered front that fell away as you realised the depth of his secret preparation and how eager he was to surprise.
There’s a moment in Clayton where he needs to shift instantly from beatific maniac to cold-blooded litigator. It was our second day shooting with George, we were on the streets, it had snowed unexpectedly, the paparazzi were swarming, and we’d never rehearsed the scene. Everything was happening too quickly. Panic was looming. Suddenly, on the monitor, there was Tom – teeth beneath the smile – plugged-in, tuning it all out and ready to roll. Arthur Edens was alive, and we were in business.
It’s a strange transaction, isn’t it? You build a character and pray that a brilliant actor will come and steal them from you. Tom quietly hijacked everything I ever gave him. Emotional truth is job-one, but there’s always something additionally available behind Tom’s performances – hidden steel, unforeseen awareness, unexpected vulnerability – it’s that hint of contradiction that confirms we’re in the presence of something real and Tom brought the glitch of humanity to everything he did.
A week before we’d started shooting, I’d gone to meet him for a general catch-up on all things practical. The prop department had sent me with a case of eyeglass frames for consideration. They were concerned; time was tight and anything we chose would need to be built for Tom’s very powerful prescription. “Oh, no need to worry about that,” Tom told me, “Leave them as they are, I never like to see the other actors.”
Truth? Acting? I have no idea, but that’s how he rolled. I can’t pretend to know how he got there any more than I could take credit for the bouquet he presented the camera day-after-day. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is get out of the way and count your blessings. Thank you, Tom.
‘Another surprise was how easily he giggled’
Harriet Walter, co-star in The Governess and Belgravia
At first Tom was just “one of us”, one of a pool of actors working at the Royal Court and on the London fringe in the 1980s. I was vaguely aware of him. Then he came into sharp and indelible focus as the Royal Court’s unusually young King Lear. I think I may have mumbled some congratulations to him in the pub next door. He gave the impression that he wouldn’t welcome any gush.
From then onward I watched and wondered at Tom’s screen performances always amazed that “one of us” had become an international name; not a star, but something more enduring, a formidable and versatile actor. Hilarious as Pecksniff in the BBC’s Martin Chuzzlewit, disturbingly unravelled in Michael Clayton, always bringing a weighty dignity to his roles.
I was proud to be fictionally married to him twice; once in The Governess with Minnie Driver and quite recently in Belgravia. While shooting the former he took a couple of days off to go to the opening of a “great little film” that he guardedly predicted ”might do pretty well”. It was called The Full Monty.
Not being one to break through a private person’s carapace, I was always a bit nervous of him. He had a bit of a curmudgeonly reputation and persona. But by the time we shot Belgravia I was less shy and found that with the lightest of scratches at the carapace I found the compassionate and humorous Tom underneath.
He had a dry, sly wit. I remember one day when the cast were all sitting around in crinolines and cravats, each on their mobile phones, Tom walked over to me and asked why everyone had to be forever on their phones. “I guess there’s not much else to do while hanging around on a set,” I ventured. “There’s always conversation,” he replied rather wistfully. I don’t think many people went to Tom for small talk.
Another surprise was how easily he giggled, or let us giggle, when some idiotic thing made us corpse. We were supposed to be the Earl and Countess of Brockenhurst but neither of us could ever remember our name. We tried Brocklebury, Brackenbury, Broadhurst and on one occasion Tom elevated himself to the Dukedom. He also had us in fits in a scene around the dining table when he lost his hold on the dialogue and meandered on into a tangle of nonsense while the camera continued to roll.
I wish I had lost my shyness sooner. I could have known him better and I would have been the richer for it.
‘I will plant a tree in his memory’
Judi Dench, co-star in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Wetherby
I have such fond memories of Tom in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in India, and I will plant a tree to him in his memory. He was someone I admired very much.
‘You wouldn’t want to mess with him’
Cathy Tyson, co-star on Priest
I worked with Tom Wilkinson on Antonia Bird’s Priest in 1994. It one of the first really significant films either of us made, but at the time I was in my late 20s and he was in his mid 40s, and much more experienced.
Tom played a priest in Liverpool and I was the housekeeper he was having an affair with. We lived with another priest, played by Linus Roache, who was struggling with his faith and his sexuality.
Tom had great presence. He was quite serious, very authentic and not at all a luvvie. He scared me a little: you wouldn’t want to mess with him – not because he was a bully, but because he had an air of not tolerating flippancy or frivolity.
Yet although the shoot was sometimes an intimidating experience it was also inspirational, largely because when I was younger, I was shier. Tom wasn’t a puppet: he had intellect and was respected, and when you meet someone like that when you’re young and uncertain, it shows you what is possible. That an actor can question the script or creative decisions.
I was also aware of the need to remain in character – and if you’re overly chatty, you can lose that. You never saw our characters’ kissing; even though they were having an intimate affair, it was discreet. That was realistic, because they couldn’t show their affection publicly. So the distance between Tom and I, although we were playing lovers, was helpful.
Making Priest was a very memorable time for me, and though we didn’t keep in touch, I’ve always admired Tom’s work. He seems never to have done a bad performance. I especially liked his part as a gentle peacemaker in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Seeing that vulnerable side to this strong, confident northerner was wonderful.
‘He did the best audition I’ve ever seen – then or now’
David Hare, director of Brassneck, My Zinc Bed, Wetherby, Denial
Just over 50 years ago, Richard Eyre and I were auditioning, as you did in those days, for the annual company at the Nottingham Playhouse. On the last afternoon Geoff Wilkinson walked into the ballroom in Earls Court and did the best audition I’ve ever seen – then or now. One speech was from a Charles Wood play about a pedantic schoolmaster. This young actor was prematurely mature and his wit was bone-dry. At the end, Richard and I looked at each other astonished, then admitted we had no named roles left – Jonathan Pryce was already our leading man – but if Geoff wanted to come to Nottingham to play as cast, we would be delighted.
I have always been proud to say that Brassneck, a 1973 satire about civic corruption which I wrote with Howard Brenton, opened with a scene between Tom (as he became) and Paul Dawkins.
One or two years later, the Playhouse doorkeeper, after a Saturday matinee, uttered the most unexpected request over the Nottingham Tannoy. “Could Mr Wilkinson please come to the stage door where a Mr Wajda is waiting for him?” Yes, Andrzej Wajda had travelled unannounced to cast him, unknown, in Joseph Conrad’s The Shadow Line. It took a great Polish director to set Tom off on his exceptional film career. But film’s gain was the theatre’s loss.
I did persuade Tom back to the Royal Court in 2000 to play opposite a blazing Julia Ormond in My Zinc Bed. With those two together onstage with Steven Mackintosh, our take on alcoholism was unsurprisingly the fastest-selling play in the Court’s history. But Tom was ambivalent about the success. In Max Stafford-Clark’s production in 1993, his testy, choleric king had been one of the only Lears you could set anywhere near Paul Scofield’s. And his impetuous Stockmann in David Thacker’s Young Vic production of An Enemy of the People in 1988 was unforgettable. But Tom’s distrust of showing off began to darken his relationship with live performance. He preferred film where he could do his work and go home without the embarrassment of acclaim. He hated show and he hated business.
You may say that a dislike of praise and pretence is an odd quality in an actor. But it’s more common than you think, and Tom was its quintessence. He was at his happiest in 1984 when, in Wetherby, I threw him in where he belonged: in an ensemble with Vanessa Redgrave, Judi Dench, Marjorie Yates and Ian Holm. As they all walked arm in arm through the night, looking at the stars, it would have been impossible to say who was the most experienced member of the team and who the least.
Our last outing together was Denial, in which to the delight of the formidable barrister Richard Rampton, he played Richard Rampton. By then, some smart directors like Todd Field, Julian Fellowes and Antonia Bird had put Tom in leading parts, rather than using him to inject 20 minutes of energy and class in supporting roles. My screenplay dramatised the events when the historian David Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt for calling him a Holocaust denier. Because the film was a defence of historical truth, I felt bound to use the exact court transcript. Tom delivered the defence counsel’s longest speech, word-perfect and impeccably acted, in a single magisterial take. When I found him outside having a cigarette afterwards, I asked him how on earth he did it. Tom shrugged and said, a little grumpily, “That’s the job”. But I could tell he was pleased I’d asked.
‘He gave me a history of trade unions as a birthday present’
Richard Eyre, director of Stage Beauty, White Chameleon, Three Sisters, The Churchill Play, Comedians
I met Tom in 1974 when he called himself Geoff, his second name. I was auditioning actors – with David Hare – in the home of the Poetry Society in Earls Court for my first season as director of Nottingham Playhouse. Geoff/Tom had just left Rada and this was his first job audition. He was a big man – courteous, gentle, intelligent, a little shy. He sat opposite me and told me he’d been born in Yorkshire, a farmer’s son, had emigrated to Canada when he was 11, returning when he was 16, had a degree in English from Kent University before Rada.
Then, without a break, he started – I thought – to give me advice on what we should demand of actors: “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently …” And so on: Hamlet’s speech to the Players. I’ve never heard the speech done better and we offered him a job on the spot.
He stayed at Nottingham for two years: loyal, expert, modest, always exquisitely detailed. He had an extrovert side, often gesturing with wide outstretched arms, as if to embrace the world, but he was more often slightly diffident, with a quiet wit, keeping himself to himself. He was often very funny on stage and off, sometimes overcome with rolling laughter. He had strong political views, a serious and sophisticated socialist with a strong sense of social justice: he gave me a history of trade unions as a birthday present in our first season.
Had Jonathan Pryce not also have been in the company at the same time he would have played all the leading parts, instead of only a few. He and Jonathan (and Stephen Rea) were together on equal terms in my production of Trevor Griffiths’ play Comedians, which I’d commissioned at the Poetry Society the day I met Geoff/Tom. He played Mick Connor, an Irishman who stays true to his background without seeking to debase his identity. His performance was perfectly calibrated. We transferred the production from Nottingham to the National Theatre at the Old Vic, then to the West End. Geoff became Tom and the world discovered his large charm and what an exquisite actor he was.
‘I shed tears and I was proud of him’
Jonathan Pryce, co-star in Comedians and A Business Affair
At Nottingham I shared the stage and a flat with Tom. He taught me a few salads and I taught him how to make chips like my mother made them. I loved him. He was as funny as he was uncompromising.
He stood four square on stage as he did in life. He was superb on film with his characteristic intelligence, integrity and wit. He was a rock as Mick Connor in Comedians.
I saw his Hamlet in Coventry. At the Royal Court in 1993 I saw him play Lear when he was still in his mid-50s. He was great. I shed tears and I was proud of him. Both things that I am doing today.
‘A light fleetingly flares between his legs. Our final frame’
Peter Cattaneo, director of The Full Monty
Tom’s extraordinary acting range was key to The Full Monty’s success. The film’s tone balanced precariously between comedy and pathos and Tom was able to step incredibly nimbly from deception to isolation and anger, with truth, tenderness and impeccable comic timing. His reaction when he is caught ballroom dancing by the gang is judged to perfection; his desolation after his failed job interview heartbreaking; lines like, “You’re fat, he’s thin and you’re both fucking ugly” delivered with true Yorkshire bite.
He was always so well prepared and he committed to every moment with conviction. It takes an enormous leap of faith to pirouette in a dole queue – the final flourish in a heightened scene that could so easily have come unstuck in that context.
Tom was always a gentleman on set and his natural likability and warmth ensured that, despite Gerald’s bombastic pomposity, the character remained sympathetic. Through all the absurd antics, Tom imbued Gerald with emotional truth, humanity and above all, dignity.
When choosing the freeze-frame at the end of the Full Monty, we shuttled back and forth endlessly until we landed on a frame where, as the naked gang turn to face the baying crowd, a light fleetingly, almost magically, flares between Gerald’s legs. That was it, we had our final frame.
‘He told a colleague he felt he didn’t need a director’
John Madden, director of Shakespeare in Love, The Debt, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Tom once confided to a colleague of mine that he felt he didn’t really need a director, and I concur with that judgment. I worked with Tom on four films – and almost a fifth – and I limited my input to give him the room to do what he wanted, even when he didn’t necessarily know what that was. But what he offered was always surprising, always intelligent, frequently hilarious and always true. Whatever he did, the audience found an immediate connection to him.
He was immensely gifted, gloriously grumpy and a comedic genius. A unique and unforgettable talent.
‘He might’ve played for Leeds FC’
Bill Nighy, co-star in Valkyrie and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
The world is a less glorious place without Tom in it. He was a wonderful person and a marvellous actor. I was deeply fond of him and honoured by our association.
He was a progressive liberal, which requires considerable courage. He could dance and might’ve played for Leeds FC. He was principled and kind and funny. I loved him.
‘He said: “Are you a sycophant?”’
Christopher Eccleston, co-star Dead in a Week (Or Your Money Back)
I always remember seeing Tom in a period BBC drama from the late 70s or early 80s. I didn’t know who he was. I was just watching this heavily costumed actor, whose character had to slowly, slowly fly into an almost uncontrollable rage. It was a slow-burn thing. At the time I was about 18 and just starting to think about training as an actor. I’d rarely seen anything that real on television, particularly in a period drama. It was the tension I remember, because it was all costumed up, yet the energy and the detail and reality of it was very contemporary and brilliant.
Between takes on Dead in a Week (Or Your Money Back) I asked Tom about it. He said: “What are you talking about? I’ve never done a period drama on television like that you are describing. That wasn’t me.” He denied the whole thing and then asked: “Are you a sycophant?” which made me laugh. I always admired him as an actor – and I admired that dark, dark sense of humour.
‘I suspected I was going to have a bloody brilliant time’
Marion Bailey, co-star Dead in a Week (Or Your Money Back)
There are a small handful of roughly contemporary actors whose presence throughout my working life has filled me with respect, inspiration and serious pleasure.
Tom Wilkinson was undoubtedly up there with the greats, both on stage and screen. His work appeared easeful and grounded but was always multi-layered and above all truthful.
Finely tuned and subtle but never afraid to play with the erratic, unpredictable aspects of a character – and somewhere just below the surface there was always wit and a twinkly hint of danger.
I was a middle-aged actor before being offered the chance to work with him and play his wife in the film Dead in a Week (Or Your Money Back). I leapt at the chance but not without some degree of trepidation to be working with one of my heroes. He played a professional hitman with a cosily suburban married life and whose interests included bridge and budgerigars.
I remember the first day of filming we were waiting in a little side room while the crew finished setting up and for about five minutes there was a rather awkward silence during which I was pondering whether or not to interrupt what might be a time he required for total focus and concentration.
Suddenly out of nowhere he embarked with quiet deadpan delivery on a hilariously wicked tale of some mischief he’d once got up to with an old mate of mine. From that moment I suspected that I was going to have a bloody brilliant time working with him and such proved to be the case.
He made me laugh every day. Wonderful to work with, wonderful to watch, funny, generous and kind. A masterclass in film acting.
What a joy and privilege to have got to strut my stuff with him and how sad that I won’t get to do it again. He was one of a kind and a great loss.
‘It felt at the time like an odd, strained encounter. Later, I learned why’
Ewen MacAskill, Guardian reporter played by Wilkinson in the film Snowden
I am from an older generation of reporters who were expected to remain anonymous, a hidden presence behind a byline. So it was an unexpected bonus late in life to be played in a Hollywood movie. Even more ego-boosting was that this role, albeit minor, was played by one of the UK’s best-loved actors, Oscar-nominated Tom Wilkinson.
The film was Snowden, director Oliver Stone’s 2016 biopic of US whistleblower and spy Edward Snowden. As one of the reporters who met Snowden in Hong Kong in 2013 when he handed over tens of thousands of secret documents about government surveillance, Stone invited me to watch filming in May 2015.
The film crew had recreated in a Munich studio the Hong Kong hotel room where myself and colleagues Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald had been holed up for a week interviewing Snowden. I was impressed watching Wilkinson, who brought an admirable earnestness to occasionally trite dialogue.
In between filming, the screenwriter, actors and others asked about events in Hong Kong, intrigued by a story they had spent the last few months depicting. But Wilkinson showed no such curiosity.
I eventually asked for an interview and he agreed to do it during a fag break. We went outside the studio. It felt at the time like an odd, strained encounter. Standing side by side in the freezing cold, and continuing even in a thunderstorm, he politely answered all questions. But he seemed oddly detached throughout. He never once made eye contact. He puffed on his cigarette, looking fixedly at the sky. I wondered if he valued his privacy or was upset at being interrupted in the middle of filming or just bored by the role.
I was long puzzled by this but a possible answer has surfaced since his death: that such behaviour was not uncommon for him. In a tribute to Wilkinson posted on Instagram, Scottish actor Jack Lowden, at present enjoying accolades for Slow Horses, describes a similar encounter “… during breaks of filming Tom would walk past me and say ‘Jock, wanna cig?’ We would go outside. He would talk to me staring out into the middle distance, never turning to look at me, much like when driving a car gives people permission to somehow be more open as the eyes are required somewhere more important,” he said.
During the interview in Munich, Wilkinson studiously took time to consider each question before offering a quiet reply. I had an initial feeling – misplaced as it turned out – that he was not sympathetic to Snowden. While not sharing the campaigning zeal of Stone and the actor who played Snowden, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Wilkinson recalled the excitement of the revelations in the Guardian about government surveillance, and said he did not view Snowden as a traitor. “You need someone like that. I think all people who put themselves out on a limb to the extent to which he has have a simplicity of outlook that eludes the rest of us,” he said.
We joked about the Scottish accent he adopted for the movie. “It is always an accent I have never had any problems with,” he said. I pointed out mine was rough, garbled Glaswegian but his sounded more like a refined Edinburgh one. He conceded that might be the case as he had learned his Scottish accent playing in Burke and Hare in Edinburgh. Maybe for the best: subtitles might have had to be added for US audiences if he had replicated mine.
I never met Wilkinson again and I have not watched Snowden since 2016. But I will remain forever grateful to him for portraying me on the screen.
‘I melted’
Rachel Weisz, co-star in Denial
As a performer he seemed to fly without a safety net. His acting was dangerous and without ego or vanity. He was so full of heart and intelligence. I was inspired by the depths of his talent, his humanity and by the way he carried himself through life.
After a scene we did together, he turned to me and said: “You’re not bad, kid.” I melted.
‘One of the dogs pissed all over Tom’s fancy velvet trousers’
Peter Webber, director of Girl With a Pearl Earring
One of the first things Tom ever said to me was “It’s not enough to be good in this business. You need to be good in successes.” As well as being a supremely talented actor Tom was very shrewd about the fickle and insecure business he worked in. He had been around for long enough to understand what it takes to survive and thrive in his profession.
He had a touch of darkness about him which gave his characters depth and profundity. There was always a suggestion of a very real and complex humanity, of light and shade in the work he did. He had a quality that many great actors have, of being able to subsume their own personality into that of the character, of understanding their flaws and weaknesses.
You had to bring your A game to work with him. He was whip smart and didn’t suffer fools gladly. He also had a steely will and discipline. For one scene in Girl With a Pearl Earring he was sat in a chair accompanied by two large hunting dogs. We were behind schedule that day, racing to finish. The mood was tense. The cameras were finally set, the lighting ready. To the amusement of the crew one of the dogs suddenly cocked its leg and pissed all over the trousers of the fancy heavy velvet period costume Tom was wearing. I expected a big fuss. A 30-minute delay while he went back to the costume department and changed. Tom knew the pressure we were under. He barely flinched, shook his leg a little, caught my eye. “Tom?” I asked, expecting the worst. “Roll ’em” he said. We did the scene in a couple of takes. And without a word when I called out “scene complete”, he got up and strolled off to get out of his damp, smelly clothes.
What a trouper. He will be missed.
‘He said: “I found some tapes, and I’ve been practising in the shower”’
Jay Roach, director of Recount
I mourn the world’s loss of Tom Wilkinson. To realise we won’t get more of those world-class performances is just more unbearable news. I’m sad for selfish reasons, too: I was only able to work with him once, when he played Secretary of State James Baker in our HBO film, Recount. It was one of those extraordinary experiences I’ve desperately hoped to repeat. I have never been able to.
Tom elevated our film immeasurably. There were many ways Recount could have gone wrong. That contested presidential election in 2000 was one of the most divisive events in US history – an existential, constitutional crisis (trumped since by Trump). The film was made by mostly liberals, at HBO, so of course we feared it would be seen as revisionist, partisan propaganda. In addition to starting with a great, balanced script (by Danny Strong), we tried to transcend the prejudices and earn the attention and respect of audiences from all sides by casting the hell out of it. Especially in the role of the chief Republican lawyer, James Baker, who came to Florida representing George Bush in the battle against Al Gore’s lawyers.
By then I had met the real Jim Baker. I had studied his charming confidence, his shrewd political cunning, his intense win-at-all costs aggressiveness when the chips were down. Tom Wilkinson was the answer.
But, being a little insecure directing my first drama (after several comedy films), I had to ask Tom, when we first met on the phone, what about the Texas accent? (My conservative parents were from Texas, and proud of Jim Baker, so I knew I’d be hounded if the accent wasn’t up to snuff.) I asked Tom, would you like an accent coach? He said no, thanks, I’ve already found some tapes, and I’ve been practising in the shower.
Something about that confidence, which again, he shared with Baker, made me think we’d be OK. And we were. He showed up fully prepared, entirely off book for the whole film, and completely dialled in on a very distinct Houston accent that never once faltered.
On the set he squared off with John Hurt playing Warren Christopher in scenes that just melted us. His range, from warm, fatherly political sage to intense, ruthless gunslinger, earned him an Emmy and Golden Globe nomination.
Tom was so easy, so warm, so eager to engage. He set a tone that gave all of us confidence in what we were doing.
There was one day he made me laugh out loud at my green-at-drama directing. There was something I wanted out of his first speech to his team, which included Bob Balaban, playing recount lawyer Ben Ginsberg. I usually try very hard to say very little when giving actors notes. I never want to over complicate things. But that day, for some reason, I couldn’t find a simple direction, so I walked up to him from behind the camera and waxed on self-righteously about theme and purpose of the speech, asking for something different from what he’d given. Tom said in his usual quiet, simply professional way, “I’ll do that.” But after I turned and walked away, I overheard him saying to Balaban, “Do you have any idea what he was talking about?” I cracked up, turned back around, and said, “I heard that, Tom, and I appreciate you indulging me, but please now ignore me and let’s just do another take and see what happens.” He did the next take, totally his own way, and blew us all away. Cut, print, moving on.
I learned so much from Tom. I was so lucky to experience his greatness and his kindness. I just wish I’d found another opportunity to keep working with him and learning more and more.
‘He gripped his chin, twisting it. His brow was furrowed’
Justin Theroux, co-star in John Adams, and director of Dedication
On hearing of Tom’s passing, once my shock and sadness had ebbed away a bit, one primary recollection came to mind. It speaks neither to Tom’s gravity as an actor nor to the quiet – if, at times, prickly – kindness he reliably showed up to work with.
In fact, the memory is of almost no particular note. But it does somehow speak to his quiet utility as – to me, at least – a working man’s actor, and his desire to always be the correct-shaped tool for the job. I’m still not sure why this particular memory made such an impression on me, but it certainly contributed to my love for him.
In 2005, I was fortunate enough to direct Tom in a small independent feature. At the end of our tight, 23-day schedule, he needed to leave New York and immediately start another film.
I had gone to his chilly holding room to discuss a scene we were to shoot that day. On entering, I saw Tom: large and looming, sat forward on a couch over a low coffee table. He was hunched over a dozen or so battered script pages. He gripped his chin, twisting it. His brow was furrowed.
The pages were not from the scene we were about to shoot. They were not even from our film but rather his next project. A higher-budget endeavour than ours. As I sat down he shuffled his pages together and briefly apologised. Elaborating, he said it was a monologue of enormous length and, without seeking any kind of comfort, confessed to being slightly apprehensive about it. I seem to recall him mentioning it might even be spoken off camera.
He expressed some frustration at its length, remarking briefly that actors can accomplish much with fewer words. And that most writers seem doomed to never learn this. He seemed slightly bitter about now being tasked with learning it all.
Putting our own day’s work and my director’s hat aside, we began to talk shop, as actors do, about what might be the most preferable way to manage such a gargantuan speech – how to approach it on the day of shooting.
Perhaps do it in bite-size pieces? … Do the top of the monologue first, in the wide? Then shoot the back half the same. Get used to it for a few takes but save the “meat” of the speech for his closeup? Or maybe even break the speech into two parts. Shoot the first half before lunch, the second half after a break. If it was in fact going to be off camera, did he even need to commit it to memory? To be honest, these were more one-sided suggestions from me than they were him trying to solve a problem.
He picked up the pages, pursed his lips and began looking at it again. He flipped one page over the other till he was back at the beginning of the stack, then put the pages aside and looked at me. “Right,” he said, ready to move on and discuss the scene we were about to shoot. Still curious, I pressed him.
“So how are you going to do it?”
He drew his chin into his chest, leaned in close and locked eyes with me.
“I’m going to learn it all and do it in one take. Every time.” He smiled broadly and puckishly. “That’ll show the fuckers.”
