Tom Hiddleston on Learning to Dance for Stephen King Adaptation 'The Life of Chuck'

It feels like a story that's about trying to hold on to what is good in a world that feels like it's falling apart. And that takes great courage and great wisdom. It takes a real talent for living. The film's called The Life of Chuck, and yes, it's about Chuck's life, but it's about all of our lives. And that there are moments of spontaneity, moments of connection, moments of joy in all of our lives, which will become the moments we remember in the last hours of our lives. So, Mike, I wanted to start with you. In a general sense, what makes a project worth adapting? And were you envisioning a movie in your head when you were reading Stephen King's novella for the first time? Oh, absolutely. I first read the novella kind of just as the COVID lockdown began in 2020. And so this particular story connected with me in a very, very visceral way at the time. There's no kind of moment where a story roars off the page and says, I want to be a movie. But what started to happen as I continued to read it was that sequences, very cinematic sequences, just began to play out in my imagination. When I put the story down, I was amazed by how much joy and hope and emotion I was feeling on a story that I didn't think was necessarily going that way in the beginning. And I remember shutting it, turning to my wife and saying, we have to do this. This might be one of the best movies we ever get to make. And for the cast, can you talk about how the project landed on your radar and then what appealed to you about the character you're playing, if that's how you want to start? Yeah, I mean, I just was completely thrilled to get the script and be so moved by it. I think it's one of those stories that you're so kind of intrigued and then you're drawn in and you're kind of... There's a tension to it, a really deep tension, and there's a kind of existential sense of the world. And then there's something extraordinarily beautiful and emotional that takes over and just rocks you. And so that was my experience with it. I came at it the other way around, in a way, because I read the script and I hadn't at that time... I'm sorry, Stephen, but I hadn't at that point read the novella, which I then went and immediately read, and it was just stunning. So I spoke to Tom. I was in the States, I think you were in the UK. In London, yeah. And as we just sort of were talking about it and just circling this idea, you know, these characters don't meet in the story, but it was that thing we were talking about, about sort of being in different... Painters doing different parts of the canvas, you know, and just kind of really sort of experiencing this thing in this really profound way. So it was just incredibly meaningful and immediate for me, this experience. Yes, I came into contact with the script. Mike and Trevor Macy, Mike's producer, sent me the script and I read it very quickly and I found it extraordinarily touching. My response was immediate. I was really gripped by the first act, which is the third act, and that will make sense when you see it, and I found it very compelling and very mysterious, and it was a real page-turner for me. And then the revelations, and there are many revelations in the story, were I felt incredibly emotional and surprising in the most extraordinarily joyful way. I felt really touched by it. And I remember finishing it and thinking, I would love to do this, and very quickly spoke to Mike and Trevor and said that. I said, I would love to do this. Please can I do it? And they said, yes, we would love you to do this. So, yeah, there's something in the soul of the story which is very tender and very wise, and it spoke to so much of the... It resonated very deeply with me in a very personal way. It feels like a story that's about trying to hold on to what is good in a world that feels like it's falling apart. And that takes great courage and great wisdom. It takes a real talent for living. The film's called The Life of Chuck, and yes, it's about Chuck's life, but it's about all of our lives, and that there are moments of spontaneity, moments of connection, moments of joy in all of our lives which will become the moments we remember in the last hours of our lives. And it's about trying to find those moments and experience them and hold them dear because the world is full of pain and suffering. That's true, but there are also moments of joy, and I had never seen it so beautifully expressed as in this story. So I said yes very quickly, and Mike said yes too. That was so beautiful. The movie is so beautiful. Even people talking about it is so beautiful. But for me, Mike called me and told me about the project, and then I think sent me the script. I was so excited to get a call from Mike. I've worked with him before on Oculus, and so I was immediately ready to say yes, regardless of what he was going to send me. But anyway, I read it, and I was like, okay, thank God, it's brilliant. And it was just so moving and original. I thought it was one of the most original things I've come across in a long time. In terms of structure and also just the way it's dealing with saying goodbye to your life, in a way. And it was so Mike as well. His identity was all over it, and so I just knew immediately I had to do it. Since the movie is told in reverse chronological order, is there anything from an establishing perspective that you need to do as a director that maybe you wouldn't if a film was told in a traditional narrative, just so the audience is following the direction the movie is going in? That's an incredible question, and one that we asked constantly. It was the first question of the screenwriting process, but the structure that Stephen King had created for it was so perfect for this story, and created such an interesting experience in the way it doled out information and made connections between these different periods in someone's life. It then became an opportunity to mix things up, actually, and to say, well, these are such distinct, kind of separate stories in a lot of ways. We can shoot them differently. They can have different aspect ratios. We can have a different color palette for them. We can try to really make them distinct, but then how do we make sure they feel connected, coherent, and part of one larger story? I think our lives are like this, and this is something that was important to try to put on the screen. Our lives are not ordered and monochromatic. Our lives tend to be... Tom used the word constellations recently, and I thought that was perfect. I've often thought of the moments in our life as instead of being a straight line, it's confetti that falls around us. There was a chance for this story to feel a bit like life, and there's something I truly believe, that we only really understand a lot of the connections and a lot of the meaning in the moments of our lives when we look back. It's sometimes very difficult to feel them as we're looking ahead, and so this story lent itself to that structure just so naturally, and I think is one of the things that makes it so effective. And since it's told in 3 separate chapters and the cast doesn't always overlap between them, were you all in contact about the narrative through line or any connections in that sense? Well, yes. I mean, I think they are quite contained, the 3 acts are quite contained. But I remember we saw each other a weekend before I started, and obviously we'd spoken on the phone, and there was a sense of a kind of... We were creating this constellation together, and each of us was responsible for a slightly different star in the night sky that was going to burn at the particular radiance it needed to burn at. I think that's the beauty of the story, is it feels like all the characters and all the performances are actually expressing different aspects of the painting, different qualities and moments about the business of being alive and where meaning resides in our lives. And at the end of our lives, whether it's the end of an individual life or the end of the world, where do we find meaning? And I think the answer to that question is likely to be surprising. To anyone else? That makes sense. I just don't want to go after that. Tom, you have a big dance sequence. What was the style of dance that was hardest to master and which came easiest to you? Wow, that's a great question. So yes, as very, very carefully and beautifully described, by Stephen King in the novella, there is a extraordinary moment of joy and spontaneity as expressed in this dance. And I play Chuck Krantz, and Chuck Krantz seems to all the world like the accountant that he is, that's his job, and he's on his way to a conference and walking along the sidewalk one day, he hears a drummer busking on the street and he likes the sound of that drum, and he puts down his briefcase and he starts to move. And he begins to remember the other multitudes that he contains, one of which is that he was taught to dance by his grandmother in his kitchen as a child, and that went on to become something he did at high school. And then this dance number evolved very spontaneously out of a connection with the drummer and another young woman who's in the crowd. And in approaching it with Mike and Annalise Basso, who plays Janice, and Taylor Gordon, the drummer, and Mandy Moore, our choreographer, we kept thinking, well, Chuck as a young boy was actually taught so many different styles. He was probably taught jazz and swing and polka and bossa nova and samba and salsa and cha-cha and quickstep and all of these very technical dances, none of which I have any training in. So I had to do a kind of six-week fast track. It's interesting. There are some that came more easily than others. I found I loved dancing jazz and swing. Bossa nova is a technical thing that took my hips a little minute to get my head around. That makes sense. And polka is like a 100-meter sprint. It feels like a gallop. But that's the thing about all these dances is that if you do them enough, the rhythm infuses your body and you start to feel the thing within yourself that it looks like. There are certain really, really kinetic, dynamic dances and there are dances which are much more soft and delicate. But the key thing was really the joy. If I didn't quite nail the technique, it was more about expressing the joy. Yeah. Bossa nova. Looked great to me. Thank you. As you all mentioned, the film deals with themes of the end of the world. So not to be morbid, but if you could go around and say, how would you spend your perfect last day if you knew that was coming? Wow. Here's the thing. What's so interesting about your question is that this is, I think, the great twinkle in the eye of the film and in the eye of Stephen King's story is that none of us know when our last day will come. And that's the great mystery of life, is that nobody gives you the date, your expiration date. And we live in that uncertainty all the time, every day. And none of us know how soon or how far away that day is. And so the challenge of life is to embrace the moment and not to think, none of us have forever. That's for sure. But it's like, how do you embrace the moment? Because your last day might be around the corner. You don't know. So it's sort of, how do you, I suppose not to be cliche, but how do you live every day as if it might be your last? How do you feel that you are content with yourself, content with your life? Well, there's something quite interesting in this idea that you do know, I mean, in this context, of knowing and what that does. And I think there's something that's quite fascinating about the wheels coming off, but the pursuit of normality, which I think is very, I haven't seen it before or interpreted quite in this way. And I think it feels very true to me, the balance between trying to figure out how to have everything be normal and the knowledge that it's all going to end, I think is a strange and probably quite honest way of engaging with it. I think that that's something that I think is probably what I would be trying to do, is to try to create a sense of normality with family, with friends, but quietly freaking out. But you're saying you do know? You know your last day? Well, I'm not saying I, but in the context of the question, this idea of if you were to... If you were to know it was your last day. Or you were to know the world was going to end, or if it was clear. Which I suppose it never is, yeah. I think... No, please, please. I was just going to say, it's interesting in the film that the characters do know, and so what they do is seek out connection with each other. And I think that's probably the most natural thing in the world. And I've read a weird amount of quotes from people on their deathbeds. And they talk about how so many things fall away that you've given so much weight to, like the accolades that you might have won along the way, or all the money that you earned, or all the things that you achieved. And actually what matters is the relationships that you had in your life and the connections. And so I think my guess is that I would be seeking out my strongest connections and just trying to spend my last moments in those. That was something that struck me so much about the story, because when you read apocalyptic stories, when you see something about the end of the world, it tends to be people running and screaming from something, a giant tidal wave or a firewall or something. And this story from the start seemed to exist in a place of acceptance and of the questions that we would really ask. Who from our past meant something to us? Who, if we did know there was only a few minutes left, who would we want to spend that time with? And I thought it was so amazing to be talking about the end of the world, but without that visceral terror that comes with that, and instead looking at characters who call each other up, who haven't spoken in a long time, or sit together to look at the stars and take a moment. It really forces you, first as a reader, and I hope as a viewer, to ask those questions and to say, if it was my last day, where would I be? I like to hope that that answer changes over time, and that the important thing is that you keep just revisiting it in so much as it's comfortable, because we don't want to dwell in that either. But I know I want to be with my wife and with my children and with the people who are the most important to me. Outside of that, what the day looks like, that changes. But I like taking just a moment to remind myself of that and to remember what's important, and this story did that for me in a very profound way. But it's also that thing about the end of the world, you know, without it sounding like a cliche, but in this story, the end of the world is really just the beginning of this story. And I think that's what makes it so powerful, that understanding that, whatever it is, whatever the end of the world might be, is probably just the beginning of a completely different story. And one of the things Stephen King said when he talked about the origin of the story for him was that he had heard someone say, when an old man dies, a library burns down, that the end of a person is the end of a world, you know, that even our individual experience ends a universe. And that's something that I think is worth remembering, that all of us contain this, and we contain multitudes. We contain so much more than kind of our outward-facing selves. And the sum of our experience and of our life is so much more than a description or money or accomplishment, like you're saying. It's a world. So each of us is the end of a world someday. Yes, the end of a life is the end of a world. And to what you were referencing, if the life of every human being is a constellation, at the end of that life, all those stars will be extinguished. Memories, connections, relationships, moments, and that inside the soul of every human being are a myriad connections, real and imagined, real relationships, but also imagined connections to art and literature and ideas and books and music, and all those things fold at the end of a life. But I think any contemplation with death or with the end, I believe, beautifully inspires an appreciation of life and the stuff of life and the meaning in life, that those people you love and the people you're connected to, that's all that matters, and the magic that's happened between you, and that perhaps the moments in your life that you thought were small weren't small at all. Those small moments were the big moments. And I found that very touching. I think one thing that happens when we do contemplate the end like that, the question we're all going to have is why. Why was it all? What was it all for? Why did the good things happen? Why did the bad things happen? And there's something amazing about this story as King wrote it, because it doesn't have all the answers, but it attempts to answer that, and it points to something, something very specific, and says, that, that's why, that's what it's for. And it's not everything. It's not the all-encompassing answer, but it's an answer I think is true, and that makes something like this a project that, like, how do you not do it? How do you not take an opportunity to try to point at an answer like that? It's true, and it's brave. Yeah. It's brave to hold on to what's good in a world that feels like it's falling apart, I think. It takes great courage. Well, thank you guys so much. We have to wrap, but it was great chatting with you all. Thank you.