From the Telegraph’s Chris Harvey:
Taron Egerton has historical past with billion-dollar phenomena. As Elton John in Rocketman (2019), the Welsh actor stepped into the platform boots of the third-biggest-selling solo artist of all time; as a avenue delinquent turned undercover agent within the Kingsman films, he helped to ascertain a gloriously tongue-in-cheek British rival to Bond; and in his newest movie, for Apple TV+, he takes on a viral video-game sensation that emerged from Soviet Russia and unfold all through the world, Tetris.
Egerton remembers taking part in the addictive puzzle recreation as a toddler – “My mum purchased me a Recreation Boy after I was 10,” he says – but he by no means acquired so hooked that he noticed blocks falling in his goals, as so many others did. His obsession lay elsewhere. “I used to be the Pokémon era. It was my life for 18 months or so.”
He’s 33 now. On his birthday in November 2022, Egerton posted on Instagram that “the previous yr has been probably the most difficult of my life”. “My mom had most cancers,” he tells me from his kitchen in Aberystwyth. “She’s high-quality now. Nevertheless it felt like the tip of my youth. You confront one thing meaning it’s important to dispel any of the illusions and tales you inform your self about something fairy story to do with life – you lose loads of the lightness. It was only a robust expertise.”
The yr threw up different disasters. Final March, he took on the revival of Mike Bartlett’s play Cock, within the West Finish, reverse Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey and His Darkish Materials actress Jade Anouka, however withdrew from the manufacturing after passing out on stage on the opening night time – “Barely sore neck and a bruised ego,” he mentioned afterwards – then testing optimistic for Covid-19.
“It was a troublesome episode,” he says now, and one he’s not eager to revisit. His determination to stop the play “for private causes” was knowledgeable by his mom’s most cancers analysis. But he remembers now that one tabloid tried to recommend his departure was right down to his break up from his girlfriend. “That was really two years in the past, however I simply stored it non-public,” he says. “[They] made it sound as if these two [events] have been linked, when, in truth, they have been a yr aside.”
Does he suppose he’ll return on stage? “I’d like to,” he says, “however I don’t know that anybody’s going to take that probability on me once more.”
There have been additionally some excessive factors in 2022. For his efficiency in one other Apple TV+ sequence, jail drama Black Hen, Egerton was nominated for each Golden Globe and Display Actors Guild awards. Primarily based on the true story of a drug runner (Egerton) trying to lure a rapist and assassin (Paul Walter Hauser) into confessing to the killings of different younger ladies, to shorten his personal sentence, Black Hen developed right into a disturbing psychological thriller. Afterwards, Egerton described the real-life particulars shared in a number of the scenes as “troublesome to shed”.
He’s not, nonetheless, an advocate of Technique appearing, a lot within the information of late with Bafta-winner Austin Butler describing how he spoke within the voice of Elvis for 3 years, and Brian Cox’s feedback on how his Succession co-star Jeremy Sturdy achieved his beautiful efficiency – “Oh, it’s f—ing annoying. Don’t get me occurring it,” Cox grumbled. Egerton has beforehand dismissed the Technique as “indulgent nonsense”. Does he nonetheless really feel that means?
He raises an eyebrow at listening to the knowledge of his opinions as a youthful man. “I believe a creative surroundings and a place of job requires a level of social conformity, with the intention to all work collectively,” he says. “And meaning being civil, it means being particular personin a position, it means being well mannered. I believe refusing to drop character, whatever the penalties, demonstrates disregard to your co-workers… I’ve heard horror tales… However who is aware of? Maybe individuals are in a position to do it in a means the place they navigate treating the individuals round them nicely. It typically yields actually nice outcomes, [but] I don’t know that Technique appearing has a monopoly on good appearing.
Learn the total interview: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/movies/0/taron-egerton-interview-james-bond-tetris-dieting/
