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| Thomas Brodie-Sangster: ‘They got my autograph but still wouldn’t serve me a pint’ | Thomas Brodie-Sangster: ‘They got my autograph but still wouldn’t serve me a pint’ |
| (34 minutes later) | |
| Not long ago British actor Thomas Brodie-Sangster tried to buy a pint in a pub. He was visiting Canada for work and in order to finalise a visa he’d handed in his passport. So no ID when bar staff asked for it. The 24-year-old is impeccably beardless, pale, and looks – tops – 17. “For the first time in my life I got out my phone,” says Brodie-Sangster, “and looked myself up on IMDb.” See, he told staff, he was the cute orphan in Love, Actually. The boy-mystic in seasons three and four of Game of Thrones. He was born in 1990! “They laughed,” he recalls, “and even got me to sign my autograph. But they wouldn’t serve me that pint.” | Not long ago British actor Thomas Brodie-Sangster tried to buy a pint in a pub. He was visiting Canada for work and in order to finalise a visa he’d handed in his passport. So no ID when bar staff asked for it. The 24-year-old is impeccably beardless, pale, and looks – tops – 17. “For the first time in my life I got out my phone,” says Brodie-Sangster, “and looked myself up on IMDb.” See, he told staff, he was the cute orphan in Love, Actually. The boy-mystic in seasons three and four of Game of Thrones. He was born in 1990! “They laughed,” he recalls, “and even got me to sign my autograph. But they wouldn’t serve me that pint.” |
| Brodie-Sangster makes an interesting choice for casting directors. With that youthfulness he can still play kids well into his 20s (his character in Game of Thrones, Jojen, was meant to be a 12-year-old.), but has an authoritative, distant aura that suggests the wisdom of someone much older. “I don’t know what it is. I’ve always been able to be firm, to talk my way out of sticky situations. Bullies at school. Attempted muggings. I was never gung-ho, but I was…” The actor can’t think of the word. Neither can I. Sagacious? Aloof? | Brodie-Sangster makes an interesting choice for casting directors. With that youthfulness he can still play kids well into his 20s (his character in Game of Thrones, Jojen, was meant to be a 12-year-old.), but has an authoritative, distant aura that suggests the wisdom of someone much older. “I don’t know what it is. I’ve always been able to be firm, to talk my way out of sticky situations. Bullies at school. Attempted muggings. I was never gung-ho, but I was…” The actor can’t think of the word. Neither can I. Sagacious? Aloof? |
| Whatever it was, director Peter Kosminsky tapped into the strange quality for his BBC recent adaptation of Wolf Hall. Brodie-Sangster was cast as Thomas Cromwell’s 15-year-old protege, Rafe Sadler: young enough to be an all-hours skivvy to Mark Rylance’s Cromwell, yet wise enough to offer counsel – for instance, when he recognised a potential reverse in Cromwell’s fortunes, about half way through the six-parter, and let go of his customary poise to say let’s leg it for France. In his most recent job, lending his voice to Thunderbirds Are Go!, a reboot of the kids’ series by ITV, it seems fitting he plays both Gordon and John Tracy. John is the Thunderbird, you may recall, who hovers above the action, a disembodied voice in a spaceship... | |
| Brodie-Sangster grew up in London, the child of theatre actors. He’d not long been rejected for the part of Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films when he was cast in Love, Actually, playing a bereaved boy who learns to love again with the help of Liam Neeson’s advice and a drumkit. “It makes you different at school,” Brodie-Sangster says of global exposure at a young age. “Most people played PlayStation, hung out with mates. Whereas I was going off and working, abandoning school life for months at a time. There is a certain part of it that alienates you, I suppose.” | Brodie-Sangster grew up in London, the child of theatre actors. He’d not long been rejected for the part of Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films when he was cast in Love, Actually, playing a bereaved boy who learns to love again with the help of Liam Neeson’s advice and a drumkit. “It makes you different at school,” Brodie-Sangster says of global exposure at a young age. “Most people played PlayStation, hung out with mates. Whereas I was going off and working, abandoning school life for months at a time. There is a certain part of it that alienates you, I suppose.” |
| That might be the word we’ve been searching for: alienated. Brodie-Sangster once played a deliciously creepy teenager possessed by demons in Doctor Who. He had a go at Hitler, early on, playing a pre-teen Fuhrer in flashback scenes for a TV movie. When he auditioned for Game of Thrones the show was already a two-season smash but Brodie-Sangster had hardly heard of it – he had to be nudged about it being a big deal by his girlfriend. He comes to meet the Observer in the very opposite of young-British-actorly shoes. Not Valentinos, or Jimmy Choo loafers, but flourescent-rimmed Nikes, chunky as overfed hamsters. Brodie-Sangster says they’re only the second pair of trainers he’s ever bought. | That might be the word we’ve been searching for: alienated. Brodie-Sangster once played a deliciously creepy teenager possessed by demons in Doctor Who. He had a go at Hitler, early on, playing a pre-teen Fuhrer in flashback scenes for a TV movie. When he auditioned for Game of Thrones the show was already a two-season smash but Brodie-Sangster had hardly heard of it – he had to be nudged about it being a big deal by his girlfriend. He comes to meet the Observer in the very opposite of young-British-actorly shoes. Not Valentinos, or Jimmy Choo loafers, but flourescent-rimmed Nikes, chunky as overfed hamsters. Brodie-Sangster says they’re only the second pair of trainers he’s ever bought. |
| “I’ve always kind of known what I like and what I don’t,” he says levelly. “And never felt any pressure to wear certain things, or watch certain things… It’s hard to explain, but I’ve just always felt it. I’ve always been very conscious of who I am.” | “I’ve always kind of known what I like and what I don’t,” he says levelly. “And never felt any pressure to wear certain things, or watch certain things… It’s hard to explain, but I’ve just always felt it. I’ve always been very conscious of who I am.” |
| Thunderbirds Are Go! is on Saturdays on ITV | Thunderbirds Are Go! is on Saturdays on ITV |