When did you start riding motorcycles? And has your appreciation for them deepened in six seasons?
I had just a very vague relationship with motorcycles before. I’d ridden a couple times when I was a kid on dirt bikes, and my big brother is an avid power bike, sport bike rider. He goes to track days and rides around at tracks at 200 miles an hour with other guys that aren’t really good enough to be doing that and they invariably hurt each other and create a lot of collateral damage and expense.
So I was always kind of a little nervous about that and about him doing that but hadn’t really thought a lot about riding myself. Then I got the show, and living in Los Angeles, it’s always frustrating to get around, so much so that it really inhibited my desire to go out into the world. I just had this epiphany the first day on set on riding a bike around that this is the way I want to get around, and I just love it. I mean, there’s just a sense of freedom and sense of being a part of the environment around you, and it’s fun. It’s fun riding a bike. I like it, you know. You smell the flowers and you smell the garbage and you try not to get killed by a Prius. It’s fun.
What kind of things inspire you these days?
The same thing always, just great movies. I mean, great literature and great movies. I read wonderful books and I feel so excited about storytelling. I see great movies and I feel so excited about storytelling and movie-making and I just want to be a part of that. But this whole quest for me is to try to find some meaning to my life. I feel like I’m perpetually on the precipice of total existential crisis. Filmmaking to me feels, not in a grand way, but just for me in my life, like an important and substantial way to spend my little bit of time on this planet.
You started really young, right?
Well actually just before my 18th birthday, but I’ve been on this brink of total existential crisis since I was about four years, four years old, so by the time I hit 17 I was really ready to do something about it.
What made you from this really tough background to becoming an actor?
Well, I had very, very different experiences with my mom and my dad. My mom would have loved to have been an artist. She was a ballet dancer and her mother was the premiere portrait artist in Newcastle, our hometown. They had a flair for the arts. My mom rebelled against it when she was about 16, 17 and started going out drinking and playing the town a little bit. She met my father who was a few years older, who was a very kind of, even by that point, a notorious, well-known, well-loved face in the Newcastle scenery. He was very kind of feared and respected and also loved in equal parts. I mean, he was really a kind of serious guy when he was younger. She just got swept off her feet by him.
I feel very grateful that I had both experiences, you know? My mom taught me to be an artist and my dad taught me to be like – not that I really am like him as much as sometimes I would like to be – but he taught me what it is to be like a real, old-school type of man. My dad never called the cops in his life. If there was a problem, he went and dealt with it himself that minute, then, no matter who it was. To grow up with a father who is like a legend to me, he truly feared no man. I don’t think many men can walk out in the world and say they truly have no fear. “Fight eight guys at once? Come on. Let’s go.” He was big as a building to me when I was a kid.
Did you tap into that for Jax?
I think about my dad a tremendous amount while I’m playing Jax.
You talked about your father’s legacy. What do you think will be your legacy to your kids?
I hope to have kids. I mean, I’m not sure if I will. I would just hope to have a similar legacy that my father left me: that they think I was a good man who did it his way and lived the life that he had imagined. I guess that’s it.
What are you playing in Crimson Peak?
It’s a very, very different character. The movie is kind of a Jane Austen-style love story with a supernatural element to it. I play a very kind of shy, taciturn, stolid, nervous type of guy who is locked in an unrequited love affair with Mia [Wasikowska].
What was your connection with Guillermo del Toro that he decided to keep you on board for his next project?
I think we just really respect each other a great deal. I know I certainly respect him a huge amount going into it and that respect only grew through the process of making the movie with him. I guess he just found me to be an enjoyable guy to work with. He liked the work I was doing and he found it fun to work with me.
He turned around when we finished the movie and said, “This has been one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had with an actor.” I thought, to a certain degree, that was probably a little bit of hyperbole. And he said, “No, no,no! I’m really serious. I just love working with you and I intend to put you in as many movies in the future as I can.” I took that as a big compliment and kind of went happily on my way. Then he called me two months later and said, “Okay, I just signed on to my next movie. I want you to play one of the lead roles.” And so he was good to his words. It’s really nice. I just found it to be a big compliment and really exciting.
