For Tom Cullen, acting was a natural choice of career as it was in his blood. The 37-year-old, who is known for his roles in ITV’s Downton Abbey and History’s Knightfall, is the son of two former actors.
Speaking to WalesOnline’s podcast In the Spotlight from his home in east London, Aberystwyth-born Tom admitted that he was inspired to go into acting after watching his parents teaching other performers. “I grew up in a rehearsal room where I was surrounded by actors and performers,” he explained. “My parents stopped acting before I was born and alongside teaching, they were also writers and directors. My primary school was next to the rehearsal space so as soon as I finished school I would have to sit in and watch the actors act - I completely fell in love with it!
“I was fascinated by seeing adults still be kids and it kind of infected me, I guess. I then moved to Cardiff and my high school was, in some ways, the antithesis of that. It’s not a very artsy place and I had some stuff going on at home when I was a teenager and I just moved further and further away from acting.” Listen to In the Spotlight with Tom Cullen below.
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Tom then shared how his mental health was affected after moving away from acting. “At the time, my confidence was very low and a lot of my teens and early twenties was about me trying to get back to that kid who was in the rehearsal room. I really lacked confidence in believing I could be an actor so that’s why I went to drama school much later than most people did. It took me a while to get there and I think I got my first acting job when I was around 23 or 24. I haven’t looked back and it was the best decision I’ve ever made.”
Tom attended Llanishen High School in Cardiff - a school that he said he has fond memories of, despite it “leaking when it rained”. He added: “The school was massive and 250 people were in my year or something and it was absolutely insane. I actually grew up in mid Wales so I went from living in a town with 2000 people to being in a high school with 2000 people and it was a real culture shock.
“They had a drama department in Llanishen with a teacher called Mrs Smith who, at the time, was really encouraging for me. It gave me a lot of confidence to go into acting but it still took me a while to get there.”
Tom currently lives in the area of London where, ironically, his parents met for the first time years ago. “They met in a community theatre and were both actors. There was a theatre company in Wales called Theatre Powys so they moved from east London to Llandrindod Wells to work in theatre. They were doing TiE (Theatre in Education) and their whole M.O. was to try and help people. They wanted to reach young people in order to try and change the world.
Tom admitted that due to their creative choice of career, he watched his parents “struggle” financially when he was younger and he grew up on a council estate. “We’d often have conversations where they said, ‘We’re not going to be able to go on holiday this year’. That was a very normal conversation so I never thought that I’d go into the industry where it was going to be sunshine and rainbows. I knew the realities of how hard it was so I had very little expectations that I’d be able to make a living out of it.
“I went into [acting] because of love. Healthily, I went in with my eyes open and I went in because there was nothing else that I could do. My parents didn’t try to dissuade me from doing it because they saw that I was struggling after trying to do other things. I was depressed and unhappy and the moment that I chose to go to drama school was the moment that I became much more connected to myself.”
Tom graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 2009, which was also attended by Alexander Vlahos - listen to our podcast episode with him here. For Tom, though, it didn’t always look like he was going to land a place to study there.
“Drama schools are more competitive to get into than Cambridge and Oxford, I think,” he said. “I actually went to the Central School of Speech in London first and I got kicked out after a year. The way I got into Welsh College was I very cheekily called up the Head of Acting Dave Bond because I’d got in the year previously and I said, ‘I’m leaving the Central School of Speech and Drama, do you think there may be a place for me?’ and he replied: ‘The term starts in like a month and a half…’
“He told me to come for a coffee and luckily, for some reason, he decided to take me on despite not auditioning. I got kicked out of Central because to be honest, the teaching was bad. My parents didn’t have a lot of money and they were supporting me through it and paying my rent. The teaching was so awful - sometimes teachers would come and go or wouldn’t show up and I told them. I’d come from working and I found the way they talked to us really strange and I was probably a bit chopsy. So I went to Welsh College and they talked to me like I was a human being. It was magical.”
Between 2013-2014 Tom starred in smash hit ITV period drama Downton Abbey - which is reportedly returning to screens - as Anthony Foyle, Viscount Gillingham. His character was introduced as a love interest for Lady Mary Crawley, played by Michelle Dockery.
Speaking about his time on the show, Tom said: “I didn’t have a massive part in it but by the time I joined, it was a massive juggernaut pelting down the highway. You had to really cling on to survive on that show and it was a really eye opening experience. It’s a very different world than what I’d been doing previously. You end up at the Golden Globes and the Emmys and the SAG Awards and all these massive high profile, American award shows. It was a lot of fun and everyone was fantastic.”
Discussing the level of attention that was thrust on to him after Downton, he added: “We process things quite quickly so by the time I did Knightfall, I took it all in my stride. It’s pretty mad how quickly you normalise those things. I remember the first time I was on a big TV set - it was my first big TV job and we were in Budapest for six months and everything on that set blew my mind. I couldn’t believe the things I was seeing but as you work, you just come to realise that’s what it’s like.
“It’s a surreal experience that you have to normalise, though, because otherwise you just become overwhelmed - especially when you’re one of the lead characters. The pressure is enormous and when an episode is worth millions of pounds, you really don’t want to ‘eff that up. Even now I’ll be on a set and I’ll just pinch myself.
“I find the lack of anonymity difficult with acting. Particularly doing something like Downton where I’d be in the pub and someone would come up to me, put their arm around me and take a picture - I found that quite intrusive and difficult to get my head around.”
Tom added that he sometimes finds the press-side of acting a little difficult, saying: “I didn’t fall in love with it because I wanted to do interviews. The reason I fell in love with acting is because I wanted to be other people and not myself so it has been a byproduct of wanting to work on great projects.
“It’s not something that when you’re in drama school, you think about. I’m incredibly grateful for my career so you have to take it. I often see people who have zero anonymity - I can still go to the pub and that’s no problem at all but I know people who can’t. Once you’re that famous then that is forever. You don’t necessarily realise that in your early twenties and it’s something that I’ve now got my head around.”
Tom described how, at the time of being interviewed, he was preparing to work on upcoming Michael Sheen drama The Way - read more about the show’s cast here - and he was taken aback by the scale of the production. “There’s a scene, which I can’t say too much about, that’s going to take place on the Severn Bridge so they’re going to have to close the Severn Bridge and that’s absolutely mad. Things like that still shock me.”
In 2019 Tom made his directorial debut with the film Pink Wall, which he also wrote. The film tells the story of a couple's struggles with the pressures of gender expectations. “It’s something I always wanted to do,” Tom said when asked about swapping to the other side of the camera. “My parents were both directors so in terms of my artistic vocabulary, I’m a lot more versed in directing. There’s something about being on the other side of the camera that for me is a lot more calming and relaxing.
“I love to be a lot more creative because with acting, there are specific parameters with which you can be creative. You design the character as an actor but with directing and writing, it’s everything - you are building the world and shaping it. That’s something that really appeals to me because I guess that I’m a f***ing control freak! It’s something that I really want to do a lot more of in the future. I’m currently in the middle of writing two films and have been for the last four years.”
When asked whether he'd would consider a more high-profile role, such as James Bond, Tom said: “I don’t think I’ll be getting the call for James Bond anytime soon! We need another Welsh Bond but I have got my money on someone who I think would be great.” Despite his theory on the new 007, Tom refused to reveal who he thinks it will be.
While a role as the secret agent might not be on the cards, Tom revealed that he’d be keen to do a play. “I’ve never done a play and I think that’s because the way I act lends itself to screen but I’d love to do one. I was supposed to do a play with Hayley Atwell years ago in the West End but she got this tiny film and that fell through.
“I like to be surprised by projects. I just like really good characters and working with different people. I’m just grateful and I’m not looking at my career wishing that I was doing something else.”
But if Tom had the chance to talk to his younger self, what advice would he give him? “If I could say something to my teenage self, I think I would say: Believe in yourself, trust yourself and life’s hard and s**t happens and it’s important to not ignore that but it’s also important to know that the stuff that happens to you isn’t you. You can be anything you want to be.”
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