BEN WHISHAW
“I COULDN’T DO SOMETHING UNLESS, SOMEHOW OR ANOTHER, I LOVED IT”
It’s 7.30pm on a cold Tuesday evening in early March and Ben Whishaw has just returned to his home in East London after a long day’s shoot. He’s delighted to be working again after almost a year off in the pandemic, bar some distinguished voice work – “The Adventures Of Paddington really kept me going in lockdown; it kept me sane.” But he’s not yet had his tea (marmalade sandwiches?) and he’s clearly famished.
“I’m filming this TV series called This Is Going To Hurt, which is based on a book by Adam Kay, who was a junior doctor,” he manages before cracking open a bag of Kettle Chips and a pot of hummus. He dips a crisp and flaps his hands in apology as he pauses to chew, then jiggles his laptop to better position himself within the Zoom frame, his dark hoodie and trademark tousled hair backdropped by a plain white wall. “And his book, also called This Is Going To Hurt, is his diaries, basically, from his time as a junior doctor,” Whishaw continues, loading up another crisp. “It’s about the NHS.”
Thankfully it’s a big bag of Kettle Chips because we’ve got a lot to get through – a celebrated career in theatre, TV and film that spans 26 years. A shy child, Whishaw found that acting allowed him to be more extroverted, and he joined the Big Spirit Youth Theatre in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Accolades quickly followed when he played holocaust survivor Primo Levi in the troupe’s adaptation of Levi’s memoir If This Is A Man. The play garnered five-star reviews at the 1995 Edinburgh Festival. Whishaw was 15 at the time.
A British Independent Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer followed in 2001, for his titular role in film drama My Brother Tom, and he was nominated for an Olivier Award for his portrayal of Hamlet in Trevor Nunn’s 2004 adaptation at the Old Vic.
“The kind of evening of which legends are made,” wrote and his career ever since is making good on that claim: film highlights include , , and and, of course, playing gadget-master Q in and (out hopefully)
