“I’m quite fascinated by Thomas in many ways. There’s an emotional bravery but also a naivety – there’s an eccentricity to him but there’s also the constraints of the aristocracy and things he’s grown up with. What made him get up and go and come to a landscape where it’s barren and you’re living with the land? I think he misjudged it. He probably had a vision of what it was and that leads me towards what I think is the heart of him - he’s an idealist and a romantic. I was determined to get this hope in there, this pulsing beat of optimism.“
Tom Hughes talking about his character in The English (2022).
















