from:
The Diary: Tom Hiddleston
by Tom Hiddleston
MARCH 3, 2011
"Unrelated (2007), was my first job, just two weeks out of drama school, and Joanna and I were as surprised as anyone when the film was taken up and championed by critics and audiences alike, and Joanna was hailed as a new, astonishingly confident, British auteur. I played Oakley, an arrogant, irresponsible, sexually cavalier 19-year-old, and both learned invaluable lessons about the craft of screen acting, and won some stripes on my lapel to be proud of."
Release date: September 19 2008
Duration: 100 mins
‘Unrelated’ is the first film by director Joanna Hogg. It's a sensitive and compelling study of upper middle-class mores and middle-age hang-ups. Kathryn Worth stars as Anna, an old friend of Verena, played by Mary Roscoe. Verena is a no-nonsense sort of lady who’s enjoying a holiday with her new husband, another friend, and their various teenage children. Anna drifts away fromt the other adults, seeking the company and companionship of the teens, and is especially taken by Oakley, portrayed by Tom Hiddleston in his first film role.
The film was shot on location in Italy. The cast lived in the house that the characters rent on the San Fabiano Estate, even sleeping in their respective characters' bedrooms in the film.
Unrelated is year's British debut
18 September 2008 ES Go London
But it delivers, and in a surprisingly big way as, finally, Anna comes to recognise that her own life is not only as messy as that of everyone else’s but that she is capable of a bit more happiness than she suspects. It’s hardly a feelgood ending but it works because you believe in the characters so completely.
Worth gives an exceptional performance in a film which delves deeper than most into loneliness and frustration without ever seeming a depressing or downbeat experience. This is a drama that amounts to much more than the sum of its parts and, without doubt, is one of the best, and most original, British films of the year.
excerpt from: Ready for your close-up, Mr Hiddleston?
Dave Calhoun for TimeOut
Joanna Hogg is a 49-year-old British director and Tom Hiddleston is a 30-year-old British actor whose first film role was as a cocky, ex-public school teenager in Hogg’s debut feature, ‘Unrelated’ (2007), a story of a troubled woman on holiday in Italy with a bunch of well-off friends and their privileged kids.
Tom, you must have enjoyed ‘Unrelated’ to come back again?
Tom Hiddleston ‘Yes, “Unrelated” was my first ever film. I think you knew that at the time, Joanna?’
Joanna Hogg ‘Yes, I knew it and wasn’t remotely worried.’
TH ‘I wasn’t either, oddly.’
JH ‘In fact, I liked it. You had done “The Gathering Storm” for TV, but you weren’t immersed in a filming world.’
Tom, how did you land that role?
TH ‘It was so strange. I was two weeks out of Rada. When you leave, there’s a strange period when you’re trying to work out how to handle audtions. It was a heatwave and I was watching the Italian film “The Consequences of Love” at the Curzon Soho and got this text from my agent which said, “Call me right now, where are you?” He told me, “You’ve got to be at Bafta in 20 minutes.” I was wearing flip flops, shorts and a T-shirt, and said I couldn’t go in this gear. He said, “Just apologise for looking scruffy.” Little did I know I’d dressed in character. I was disarmed and quite open in that first meeting.’
JH ‘I think I’m put off when actors come in who’ve rehearsed something and it’s all very slick.’
TH ‘I felt quickly like I understood the character of Oakley in “Unrelated”. I’d never been him. At 19, I was not an alpha male. But I knew those people. I knew his demons and his confidence. I also understood families who had been dysfunctional but were becoming a new unit, with new members.’
FIPRESCI PRIZE
50th London BFI London Film Festival
United Kingdom
October 17 - November 1, 2007
Norman Wilner (fipresci)
With over 300 films on 20 screens and admissions estimated at 110,000, the 2007 edition of the London Film Festival — sponsored in its 51st year by "The Times" and the British Film Institute — reaffirmed the event as England's premiere showcase for world cinema.
Less concerned with world premieres than with collecting the most prestigious films from festivals as diverse as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Venice and Toronto — "the best of everything", as one organizer declared — London exists to celebrate cinema from all walks of life, and the selection assembled for the FIPRESCI jury reflected that laudable desire.
From the American Gothic formalism of Jeff Nichols' Shotgun Stories to the shamelessly commercial energy of Garth Jennings' Son of Rambow; from Sarah Gavron's nationally relevant Brick Lane to the mournful cloud that hung over Cristian Nemescu's California Dreamin' (Endless) (California Dreamin' — Nesfarsit), our jury was offered glimpses of strange rivalries and opaque cultures; of twisting psyches and uncomplicated innocence.
Ultimately, we chose to honor a local film: Joanna Hogg's Unrelated, a piercing look at a woman struggling to come to terms with an unexpected life change while on holiday with a friend's family. Simple in its construction but endlessly complex in its psychology, Unrelated marks the arrival of a filmmaker whose talent seems as boundless as her compassion for her characters.
