Tom Hooper
Tom Hooper
Thomas George "Tom" Hooper is a British film and television director of English and Australian background. Hooper began making short films as a teenager, and had his first professional short, Painted Faces, broadcast on Channel 4 in 1992. At Oxford University Hooper directed plays and television commercials. After graduating, he directed episodes of Quayside, Byker Grove, EastEnders and Cold Feet...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth1 October 1972
thinking people childhood
I think the thumb print on the throat of many people is childhood trauma that goes unprocessed and unrecognized.
thinking patriotism film
I think English film is very embarrassed by patriotism, generally.
thinking silence emptiness
I began to think that if you're a stutterer, it's about inhabiting silence, emptiness, and nothingness.
thinking people enjoy
I think people enjoy finding out something genuinely new.
thinking gold directors
I think directors can become overly infatuated by gilt and gold, and the word 'lavish' and everything being magnificent.
thinking scary intellectual
There's something about being cerebral, intellectual, and yet emotionally repressed [in being villain]. If you think someone's doing this [bad] stuff and they're in complete control, that's more scary than if they're out of control.
thinking actors body
Sometimes your body language is enough for an actor to know that you're not happy. And you don't really need to say it out loud if you deal with actors you know very well. And I don't think you really need to be explicit.
block thinking self
I think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves, whether it's shyness, insecurity, anxiety, whether it's a physical block, and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best self. It's truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that every day.
great work
The more and more I work with really great actors, the more it's about opening yourself up to what they bring.
composing great
My two great loves when I'm shooting are working with great actors and composing images.
afraid against dad defensive five helpful kids needed nice shock
My dad said, 'The thing that I was told that was really helpful was that I mustn't be afraid of the things I was afraid of when I was five years old'. The shock of his childhood had put him in this defensive crouch against the world, and he needed to know that he had a nice wife and kids and it wasn't the same any more.
family parents sitting taught work
I come from the kind of family where work is work; my parents always taught me that it's better to be doing something than sitting around doing nothing.
clearly divide films human incredibly tap
Some films clearly seem to divide people. And I do think there's something incredibly exciting about the commonality of us as human beings, which some films are lucky enough to tap into.
What's fascinating about the Australians is they have this quality that they are impervious to majesty. They're not awed.