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Joe Alwyn is a bit of a throwback, in that he has been steadily filling out his resume with supporting parts, much the way acting careers used to be built before social media followings and nepotism really upset the system. I’ve only seen him in The Favourite, where he seemed less like a character actor making a bang with a small role, and more like a leading-man-in-waiting. With his latest film, it seems Alwyn is inching ever closer to that status. He’s currently in The Brutalist, which won best director, best drama film, and best actor for Adrien Brody at the Golden Globes. While Alwyn’s part is still supporting (he plays Guy Pearce’s son), he’s being deployed for more visible promotional duties than we’ve seen from him before. He did his first talk show last week, appearing on Late Night with Seth Meyers, and last Friday the uber private British actor held his own with the touchy-feeliest of daytime hosts, Drew Barrymore:
“I will walk everywhere,” The Brutalist star explained. “And it doesn’t matter on the weather, it doesn’t matter if it’s muddy, it doesn’t matter if it’s snowing, it doesn’t matter if it’s raining.”
“Actually, that probably annoys my friends. They’re like, ‘What? Why? Let’s just take a cab, let’s take the tube, let’s take the bus,’” he continued.
“If it’s like a 20-minute journey or an hour-and-a-half walk, I’m walking,” Alwyn further explained to Barrymore, 49. “I’m walking everywhere.”
Reassuring Alwyn that walking everywhere is not a bad thing, Barrymore leaned in, placed her hands on him and replied, “That’s wonderful, by the way. That’s a good quality.”
“Hey, I think so,” Alwyn responded, before he and Barrymore excitedly agreed that it helps him boost his step count every day.
While on the talk show, Alwyn also told a story about a childhood prank — involving fake blood — that ended with a Scotland Yard policeman yelling at him and one of his brothers.
“When I was about 8 years old … I thought it would be a fun idea to prank the neighbors, and I wrote some letters. They were pranky, but they were of the threatening pranky kind, and they were dipped in fake blood from a toy store,” Alwyn recalled, noting that the entire neighborhood became scared after finding the letters.
“Police cars turned up on the road ‘cause they’ve got a killer to catch,” he added. “I’m thinking I’m going to jail, and about three policemen came into the house, we had to confess to our crime and they stood over me and my brother, and because he’s 18 months older, which is why it’s great to have an older sibling … he was the one that took the brunt of it. I don’t remember what the policeman yelled at me, but they yelled.”
Well I’ll say this for Joe Alwyn’s talk show banter: he surprised me! I did not expect him to whip out a tale of fake blood-soaked letters that got him in trouble with the law as an eight-year-old. (Swifties, is there any hint of this episode across her catalog? Talk about vivid imagery for lyrics!) I guess it’s often the quiet ones to watch out for. Somehow, the detail that sends me over the edge is that he procured fake blood from a store, instead of playing around with jam or paint or markers from around the house. That’s another layer of planning that, if I were a parent, would make me worry if we were moving from prank to serial-killer-in-the-making territory. Thank goodness he found acting instead!
As for walking everywhere, don’t listen to any of the naysayers, Joe, because that habit will serve you well for the rest of your life! One of my favorite things about living in NYC is how walkable it is. When I was younger and still living in Manhattan, I used to leave extra time to walk between appointments instead of taking the bus or subway — and that was back when the MTA only cost $2 a trip, sighhhhhh. One of my better routines was walking 50 blocks straight downtown back to my apartment after visiting my aunt at her place. I’m glad I did it then, because now I, a) live in a different borough which requires traversing a river, and b) do not have the time anymore to take the long way. Physically, that is; metaphorically, I’m definitely still taking the long way. For everything.
Photos credit: IMAGO/Steve Vas/Avalon/Avalon, Alessandro Bremec/IPA/INSTARimages, Roger Wong/INSTARimages
