Vincent Van Gogh said, “The way to know life is to love many things.” If that is true, actor Tom Hiddleston must truly be getting to know life, at least according to his interview in the February 2017 edition of GQ/Gentleman’s Quarterly. According to the author of the article, Tom Hiddleston is brimming over with enthusiasm about things as diverse as cooking, British parks, contemporary and historic movies, music, his fellow actors, even the foggy English weather. His interviewer sums him up in this way: “The world might not be ready for the kind of earnestness and sincerity that comes along with Tom Hiddleston. I am here to tell you that we would be a much happier race of humans if it were.”
I love that quote. I love enthusiasm. I particularly embraced him, however, when he claimed Tom Hanks as his favorite actor, not only for his skills, but for being such a decent human being. Tom Hanks has long been a favorite of mine for just those reasons as well, so that helped me bond even closer to Tom Hiddleston, who has always seemed like a nice, down-to-Earth guy who was an intelligent and conscientious actor. I’m not much of one for watching super hero movies…I don’t think I’ve seen any of the Spidermans or most of the Batmans or Avengers. But between Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth, who was People Magazine’s 2014 “Sexiest Man Alive,” I find the Thor movies pretty irresistible….
However, Tom makes my post today not for his cinematic virtues, but for a piece of wisdom he shared in the article about living during these times. He decried the anti-intellectualism of our current times, the fact that so many people seem to reject the statements of “experts” as being more valuable than…let’s just say people who aren’t. He claims that there is a huge need for “a movement in critical thinking, to really resist this dilution of truth and holding people to account for twisting it or distorting it.”
And while previously he withheld his opinions about politics and public affairs, seeing himself as an actor rather than an activist, he feels like he can no longer stay silent about attempts to abandon facts for fantasies. He had this great quote, which I think we could all learn from:
“If you’re under attack, if your values are under attack, if you’re being shamed, if you’re being humiliated, the animal response is to hide in the bush. It’s to be less, to make yourself smaller, to diminish in size and volume. And the lesson of 2016 is we have to love more, we have to risk more, we have to be braver, we have to be more outspoken.”
Hiddleston has pledged that is how he is approaching life in 2017. Care to join him?
Click here to read the original article on GQ.com.
Note: Pictures were taken at Comic Con 2013 and obtained from Wikimedia, used under a Creative Commons license
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