Adding to the pile of "Tom Hiddleston is a gentleman and kind human being" stories, he unknowingly stopped me from an intense panic attack on set last year.
While filming Episode 4, I had a brain injury flareup. I couldn't keep focused and was forgetting everything Sophia Di Martino did in rehearsal. It got bad enough that Tom had to step in to tell me what to do and where to go. I was insanely embarrassed as I prided myself at being good at my job, yet I couldn't remember basic choreography.
As my internal anxiety was growing to panic levels, Tom suddenly took me by the shoulders and just held on for a minute with a gentle gaze. I realized later it was actually part of the scene, thus was likely just Tom being in the moment. But I like to think somehow, subconsciously he picked up on me needing comfort at that moment.
Touch is my communication style/love language and during COVID touch was especially rare. That simple hold on my shoulders and kind eyes took me down from teetering on a crying panic attack to just mild embarrassment I could then shake off and continue working.
I'll never know if Tom did it on purpose or not, but I'll always be grateful to him for it.
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones - Obi-Wan vs Jango; from the set to the scene.
“Well, as Jango, I didn’t know what I was doing. We shot that in Sydney in the year 2000. I just remember having so much fun.” “I think I used to kill George Lucas, because he’d be trying to shoot a scene, and I’m out there and it’s raining and someone’s got an umbrella. So I start singing that song: I’m singin’ in the rain, I’m singin’ in the rain and having a wonderful time on the set of Star Wars!” “I think I drove them all nuts, and George was very nice to me to say,” “Ok, Tem, stop singing now, I’d like to do a mid-shot or a close-up” - Temuera Morrison on playing Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones.
“And they jumped and it was...everybody was just open mouth. It was so beautiful. In this moment of pure cinema magic, it was really real.” - Lana Wachowski