Tom Hiddleston is currently promoting the “second season” of The Night Manager. It’s not really a second season, it’s like… a second limited series, ten years later with some of the same characters. While the first limited series was popular, successful and award-winning, it came alongside a new era of fame for Hiddleston. That same year, he dated Taylor Swift and became dangerously overexposed. By mid-2017 and 2018, he had largely retreated from that overexposed cycle. He began dating Zawe Ashton and by the fall of 2025, they welcomed their second child. He proposed to her but I’m unsure if they got married at some point. Which is good – I’m glad that his private life is being offered up on a silver platter nowadays. Well, Hiddleston covers the latest issue of GQ Hype to talk about TNM, and this feels like such an old-school Hiddles piece. Some highlights:

His conversations with John Le Carré: “He would have these extraordinary takes on what was happening in the world. He had been a spy himself and seen behind the curtain. He still really believed in the country and the best things about it. It made him sad that things were being denigrated.”

The past decade has left the world more fractured: “It’s been a long 10 years: Five prime ministers; three presidents, one of them twice; a pandemic; untold international conflict; fragmentation; uncertainty…We all know spies are out there, patrolling the boundaries of our reality. But what happens if those people have an existential question of, what are we defending? What’s the Britain that the service represents?”

His family’s baby boom: He goes in deep as soon as he arrives: my sister’s baby was born this morning – Is everyone well? Isn’t birth the “most beautiful, profound, earth-shattering, life-altering” experience there is? It’s something he experienced just the other day, he says, welcoming his second child into the world.

He didn’t feel in control of his life in his 20s: “When I was a young man, I was constantly doing what I’ve been told to do. I got myself twisted in all kinds of knots, both personally and professionally. Eventually I was like: Tom, get a grip. Go towards what interests you and motivates you. Get rid of people who don’t make you feel good, who embarrass you or make you do things you don’t want to do. Try not to be such a people pleaser and see where you end up.”

The 2016 overexposure: “Suddenly you’re looking at your choices in a different way and thinking: what do I want to do with my time and my energy? If you’re really honest with yourself, some of those questions are quite hard. I think I had to confront a lot of stuff in my life, and the confrontation was really challenging and painful, but transformative.” Part of that process was about making peace with himself and “all the mistakes and all the missteps and all of the moments where you said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing, made the wrong choice”.

The scrutiny that came with dating Taylor Swift: “I’m really grateful for that scrutiny in some way because it generated inside me a real self discipline and rigour to [accept that] everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but you have to be really disciplined about your own opinion of yourself. That will keep you safe in the choppy waters.”

He shot the film Tenzing: The initial shoot was in Nepal and New Zealand, where he trekked through the snow in minus 15 degrees, wearing 100 layers and with his fingertips cracking from the cold. When he returned to London in August he felt so grateful for his soft, gentle life. One night he vividly remembers sitting on the sofa watching the US Open on television with his partner, the actor Zawe Ashton. “I was reading the FT, and I was like, this is great. A perfect night. Dog on my lap. Everyone’s here! I was feeling so happy to be together, to be the pack. I love my ordinary life and I like the part of myself that’s really ordinary.”

[From GQ Hype]

There’s a lot more in this piece about his relationship with the late John Le Carré and how much he studied Le Carré’s work and life for his Night Manager character, Jonathan Pine. Hiddleston still comes across as incredibly earnest, which is what got him into trouble a decade ago. But I think his earnestness has aged well – yes, he takes things seriously. No, he’s not cynical. Yes, he really can be an overexcited puppy sometimes, but that’s part of his charm. I love that he was talking about how much he loves his soft life with Zawe, his babies and his dog too.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images. Cover courtesy of British GQ Hype.