All Boundaries are Conventions

[budgetmilk]

peter hujar's day (2025) dir. ira sachs

[mediaben]

Ben Whishaw: ‘Coming out? Part of me still thinks it’s nobody’s business’

From Paddington to Bond, Ben Whishaw has starred in some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters – but off screen he’d rather blend into the crowd

by Jonathan Dean September 28th, 2025

Ben Whishaw is having a crisis — well, as much of a crisis as somebody as calm, gentle and softly spoken as him can have. It is a quiet crisis — the man speaks at a volume so low it could be coming from a different room — but, behind that exterior, that hedge of black hair and bushy beard, lies a bustling, fretting brain.

“I’m not a model, you know,” he says, frowning, as we settle back in an east London photo studio for a day of modelling. “And I’m not particularly interested in fashion, which is probably not what you want to hear, but it’s a strange expectation of actors — that they should also look really brilliant in fashionable clothes. So you just need to find a way to not feel like an idiot.”

No wonder they picked him to play Paddington — a friendly bear who has come to represent the very British virtues of reserve and decency. If they did Paddington without fur, just with Whishaw, it would be basically the same film. When we meet, on a stifling day, he is dressed in a vintage T-shirt and jeans, with trainers that could have had a few owners. The actor has had an acclaimed past year: on stage in London for Waiting for Godot; on TV in the hit Netflix spy thriller Black Doves; on the big screen in Paddington in Peru. Next is the tender arthouse biopic Peter Hujar’s Day, about the 1970s snapper — more on which later — but first, back to what’s bothering Whishaw.

“I’ve been thinking, what is the way to dress as a man in his forties?” He is 44, 45 next month. “I went through a phase of wearing black, but that is just heavy, isn’t it? Should I wear suits? I went through a dungaree phase. But now I just dress like a teenager.” Does he ever take outfits from film sets? “I’ve definitely got socks that belonged to Q,” he says of his techie role in Daniel Craig’s James Bond films. What about Paddington? “There’s nothing tangible to take from Paddington, apart from the memo- ries.” He does add that he owns a little red hat.

His doubts about fashion are because of the attention it can bring. “I have a conflict in my head,” he admits. “Sometimes at events I’d rather blend in. For me, clothing and fashion is armour, a camouflage, and so I’ve never worn anything extravagant because I don’t feel comfortable with people looking at me.”

Isn’t that a professional hazard when it comes to acting? “Well, they do look at you,” Whishaw admits, smiling. “But you’re repre- senting a character, so most of the time you almost think it is not yourself.” So, psycho- logically, he does not feel like he is Ben? “Yes. You’re in disguise. You don’t feel it’s you being exposed.”

He pauses. He likes being at home and to keep home separate — Whishaw was married to the Australian composer Mark Bradshaw for a decade, before splitting up in 2022, and is now reportedly dating the Slow Horses actor Kadiff Kirwan. “You have to protect yourself somehow or other,” he says of life away from the cameras. “I need lots of privacy, and then to do my work, but it gets complicated because things need to be publicised.” He pauses. He pauses a lot, at lengths so great you could brew a cup of tea. “I mean, capitalism is obviouslyapartofwhatIdo,Iamaproduct that needs to be sold. But, most of the time, I pretend that’s not the case.”

He was born and raised in Bedfordshire — son to Linda, who worked in retail, and Jose, a one-time non-league footballer who still works in sport. He has a twin brother, James, whose Instagram shows them together at Wimbledon and premieres. Whishaw upped and left for London aged 19 to study at Rada, graduating in 2003. Acclaimed theatre work came early with Hamlet at the Old Vic, while his big screen breakthrough was in 2006 for the adaptation of Patrick Süskind’s cult serial killer novel, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Soon he was everywhere and it was all striking work: playing the poet John Keats in the film Bright Star and one of the versions of Bob Dylan in I’m Not There.

And then there is Paddington. The first film came in 2014, a superior sequel three years later, with the disappointing blur of a third movie last year. It started as a cute, well-meaning jaunt through a British classic, but ended as something of a cult, the centrist dad of family entertainment that came to represent, for many, a country that disap- peared via the division of Brexit. Or it’s just about a semi-naked bear. Either way it has become the biggest movie of his career.

“I have a weird relationship to it,” he admits. “Because I am very aware that I just contributeonetinyparttoit,Ialmostfeellike it has nothing to do with me. But the films are lovely and it’s gratifying to hear how much children love it. I bumped into somebody who told me about their very autistic grandson and how he finds lots of life quite difficult, but he is absolutely obsessed and, apparently, calmed by Paddington 2. He watches it over and over and goes into some other place.” Whishaw beams.“That’s wonderful.”

Voice acting, though, which is what he largely does in Paddington, is one of the sections of the industry most threatened by AI. As in, software exists to mimic voices. Does he think Paddington would work without his unique tone, which quivers and shakes along with a certain high-pitched assertiveness? “A human voice is an extraor- dinary thing,” he argues, incredulously. “Like if you lost someone...” He shakes his head somewhat, mind wandering somewhere. “When one loses someone, not hearing their voice again is one of the things that you are so pained about. Someone is completely present in their voice — I don’t think it’s a small thing at all. It’s an amazing thing, someone’s voice.”

Someone once called Whishaw “a Judi Dench in the making”. A couple of years ago I asked Dench to name some modern greats of acting she had worked with and she replied: “Keeley Hawes, Benedict Cumber- batch, Ben Whishaw.” This makes him squirm.“Oh,that’s super-nice.”

I feel like he would have been happier in Dench’s day. Back then there were interviews, yes, but the job was less 24/7 — there was no social media. You could pretty much just act and go to the pub.“But it’s a different world now,” he says, a rare fortysomething who does not like to pretend they are younger than they are. “God, this sounds so stupid and ancient, but I remember when social media started and I thought, why would anybody do this? Back then it sounded to me like a text message you made public. But now we take it for granted that everything is in the public domain.” He takes a beat. “It’s so bizarre. But every now and then I do feel very much like, come on, Ben, get with the times.”

Peter Hujar’s Day is set in 1974. Directed by Ira Sachs — who also worked with Whishaw on 2023’s superb romantic entanglement drama Passages — the film is, essentially, a conversation between Hujar, an acclaimed photographer best known for his black-and- white portraits, and a friend, played by Rebecca Hall. It is a beautiful piece of passion that came out of a conversation Whishaw had with Sachs about Hujar’s rather forgotten work.

“Lots of people don’t know about Peter,” Whishaw says. “Yet he was extraordinary. He didn’t like things to look self-consciously arty. He had this enormous sensitivity and way about him that enabled people to feel really intimate, because his photos have this amazing nakedness. I mean, sometimes they are literally naked. But even when they’re not, you feel almost painfully close to the people in the images.”

Hujar was diagnosed with Aids in 1987 and died ten months later. Is it a period Whishaw researched or talked to people from? “I mean, as a gay man who grew up in the Nineties, having reached the age I am? That period is very fascinating to me,” he says. “Great art was made by queer people in that time, and what is sad about Peter is his images document that transition from the Seventies through to the Eighties. You see the fear and absolute tragedy of losses of that period.”

Much has changed in the gay community since the Eighties — but then much has changed too since Whishaw started acting. Back then a role like the one he played in Black Doves barely existed, if at all — his Sam, an assassin, is gay, but very little is made of that fact. Instead, he just lives with a man, in the way that thou- sands of heterosexual characters have had partners over the past decades. The hit show, which co-stars Keira Knightley and is set for a second series next year, feels subtly revolu- tionary — something Whishaw agrees with, suitably quietly.

“Maybe it is quite new?” he says, thought- fully. “And I like that, but I was less inter- ested in the fact that him being gay wasn’t a remarkable thing or the focus of the story, and more interested in this man being a killer. It’s not a psychologically probing series, but I’m taken by gay characters not having to be noble, flawless or setting a good example — instead behaving in ways that are ambiguous, morally dubious, ambivalent. Messy. That’s intriguing.”

Yet I suppose this is a natural conse- quence to there being more queer roles — quantity leads to different qualities being explored, rather than gay parts being used to represent various stereotypes or be the

entire point of a character? “Yes, I agree,” Whishaw says. “I suppose that, for a long time, there were so few stories about those characters that they were a bit overloaded. As in, ‘This is the one gay story!’ That pressure is a bit too much to bear, it had to say too much for a group.” He looks off to one side, his mind clearly running through what he might say. “There has been a change ...” He takes yet another pause. “What do I think?” And another. “I think ... Well, there were very few gay actors who were out when I started and so being out didn’t seem like a sustainable position to be in.” Whishaw came out in 2014. “But now it kind of is sustainable, but, actually, it opens up so many questions I have for myself. Because, again, part of me still thinks that it is nobody’s business.”

He asks if I have any children — we are the same age. I say yes, two. “That must be hard work — but also extraordinary,” he says, somewhat wistfully. “I can really imagine the anxiety piling up. How do you know what the right thing to do is or the right thing to say? I guess one perhaps shouldn’t overthink it.”

How has Whishaw himself changed since he was a boy? “I’ve changed an awful lot,” he says. “I mean, I was really shy, quiet and still am in some ways, but I do something very public. But, also, the events of life change you, don’t they? I would like to get back to what I was like as a child.” In what way? “A bit lighter, a bit less encumbered by certain things. I think you become more aware that ‘oh no — this is really it’. This is the one go at life and a whole chunk is already gone and you’ve made certain decisions that put things in motion, that are irreversible...

“I’d like to ...” he continues, after his lengthiest pause yet, a man forever having an internal conversation, “I’d like to get back to a certain lightness.”■

Peter Hujar’s Day screens at the BFI London Film Festival on October 10-11, and nationwide from January 2, 2026.

[longlive2023]

some people just don't understand that (in my head) in my head i do everything right (when you call) when you call i forgive and not fight (because ours) are the moments i play in the dark we were wild and fluorescent come home to my heart

[iceforcutie]

Nothing’s changed ♡

[maclaineshirley]

Ben Whishaw photographed by Greg Williams for British Vogue 2023 Hollywood Portfolio. 

[olympain]

[profqlasses]

happy 41st birthday, ben whishaw! — b. 14 october 1980

[pureheroine2013]

falling, florence + the machine

[pansy2025]

but how AM i gonna be an octopus about this??? ://

[some-trace-of-her]

[dannyhoolt-deactivated20220418]

Ben Whishaw for 1883 Magazine

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s u r g e  [ 2 0 2 0 ]   d i r .  a n e i l   k a r i a

[justbelowthesurface]

Rabbi Milligan - Fargo 04x09 - East/West

[dannyhoolt-deactivated20220418]

[unabellaavventura]

[unabellaavventura]

“Ben is an incredibly intelligent, skilled, nuanced actor who doesn’t take short-cuts. My desire to make this journey feel rooted in something that you could actually believe was enormously helped by Ben playing Joseph. He made Joseph a human being. With regards to his method, his approach, he didn’t go fully method. There is a certain degree of method to him but we would converse as Ben and Aneil throughout the day. But Joseph was always there, under the surface. He kept the character close.”

—

Aneil Karia

[olmcation]

“‘He skitters boyishly off into the afternoon, waving brightly. I realise too late I forgot to sniff him to find out if he has a personal odour.’ ‘He has wiry features as though he had been put on the rack and pulled gently for a few minutes.’ ‘Whishaw looks coyly at his ravioli.’ ‘…the slight, floppy-maned, somewhat effete boy-whippet…’ ‘He has a very low hairline which his thick brown hair erupts from, first going one way, then another, and then back again, with the overall effect looking weirdly like an enormous Mr Whippy ice cream.’”

— Modern journalism, driven to hitherto unseen poetic heights by the task of describing Ben Whishaw. 

[benwishboned]

Other noteworthy additions: “It’s like a mop and sex had a baby, and it grew up, and that’s Ben Whishaw.” “…known for roles as pained waifs (Perfume), sensitive waifs (Bright Star), or pained waifs who happen to be particularly sensitive (Brideshead Revisited).” “…a small woodland animal.”

[olmcation]

“When I ask for his reaction to the fact that some critics have called him “the next Olivier”, he squirms and pulls his polo neck right up over his head.”

“‘I feel it’s only fair that you should choose which animal.’  ’I’d like to be a badger.  They’re small and quite timid, but also a powerful force when they need to be.’”

“He once, I was delighted to read, had 13 cats.”

It just goes on and on. 

[benwishboned]

“Ask Ben Whishaw about acting and he twists in his chair, pushes his hair into various shapes, and, avoiding all eye contact, mutters…”

“On screen, he tends to use those huge, vulnerable eyes to portray defenceless characters…”

“As a child, he loved Marlon Brando and Jimmy Stewart, and was good at art. He had an Athena poster of the lost city of Atlantis on his wall and kept a collection of trinkets. ‘I used to collect knick-knacks like wizards, trolls and little buddhas and arrange them like precious things on a shelf. Why am I telling you this? It was an odd thing to do. I don’t know what became of them.’ He looks at the floor, embarrassed.”

“…there is nothing – or next to nothing – coming out of his mouth. While it’s not unusual to meet monosyllabic actors, Whishaw barely makes it into the mono league.”

“Certainly, it’s true that with his huge brown eyes and his startled air, he can give a convincing impression of a two-legged deer caught in the headlights. But just how vulnerable is Whishaw off-screen, I wonder? ‘Ahh…’ he says, and looks away. There’s a long pause, during which his forehead becomes bisected by a deep frown. Some further ah-ing follows.” 

“And in between he emits one of the creepiest high-pitched giggles I’ve ever heard.”

“He has a charmingly bashful smile. But it’s also a smile to shelter behind. A smile to turn on the world if you want people to like you, while simultaneously keeping them at bay.”

“As if scanning for predators, his eager eyes dart around the room surveying the crowd as he breaks a banana into pieces and pops it into his mouth. He fidgets and squirms in his seat as if flea-infested, his oversize sweater almost drowning his wiry frame in wool. He is not typical leading-man material.”

“And with that, Ben Whishaw walks off through the throng in the bar and is gone. If, that is, he was ever here in the first place.”

“Waiflike and awkward in person, Ben Whishaw is nonetheless one of our most electrifying young actors. But good luck getting him to admit it.”

“It’s odd thinking of Whishaw bulking up because his feral fragility — along with his amazing eyes — are partly what make him such a joy to watch.”

We get it, you’re all in love with him.

[deciulla]

Quite a collection of “journalists’”quotes