Tom Hopper On Getting Sober, Training For The Screen & Finding The Man Behind The Muscle

Rich Roll (0:00)

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Tom Hopper (1:27)

You can have an action star, right? And they can be the toughest guy in the room, but I want to know who's the little boy that grew up to be that?

Rich Roll (1:37)

My guest today is Tom Hopper, an actor known for scene stealing roles in Game of Thrones and The Umbrella Academy. And now for his starring role alongside Chris Pratt and Taylor Kitsch in The Terminal List, a military action thriller series based on the novel of the same name by author and former Navy SEAL Jack Carr. This is a conversation about what it means to pursue the creative artist's life and fully commit to a craft. It's about pursuing acting with an athlete mindset. Why and what led to him giving up alcohol?

The crucial role fitness plays in his life and mental health. This guy is a beast and a very impressive high rocks competitor. Life lessons he learned from embedding with special operators and the surprising revelations that he and his wife have experienced raising a non-verbal autistic son.

Tom Hopper (2:30)

Freddie, who's actually the biggest light in our lives. I saw this interaction that I hadn't had with him for a couple of years where he looked to me and we were playing again. This is all about how he sees this world and I have to jump into that.

Rich Roll (2:45)

Yes, he is incredibly charming. But Tom is also very wise and incredibly empathetic and truly impressed me with his depth. Check out season two of The Terminal List, dropping on Amazon October 21st, and enjoy this delightful conversation with your new favorite actor.

One of my favorite categories of guests on the show are people that have found a way to meld this artistic sensibility with an athletic sensibility. When I was raised, I was under the belief or there was this perception that you can be an artistic kid or you can be the athlete, but never the twain shall meet. These are two different worlds and people are come out of the womb wired for one of these. I always love putting that lie to the test, and you're an example of that. You're a mountain of a man. You're obviously like an incredible physical specimen who is super into fitness and well-being, cares about your health, super into high rocks and cross training and all these sorts of things, which shoots you in the roles that you've taken on as these special operator types, alpha males, but you're also a sensitive artist. You wouldn't go into acting at a young age if that wasn't really the thing that lit you up more than anything else.

Tom Hopper (4:15)

Yeah, I mean, for me, like I grew up watching these action heroes, right? They're like my, they're my inspiration from the acting side of things. And I also loved watching, you know, beautiful performances by some of the greatest actors ever, right?

But I was always into sport. I was always in team sports and stuff, and I've always seeked performance. I've always wanted to be the fastest on the track and field. I've always wanted to be performing the best I can do. It's weird because my, as my teens went through the process, I was a very skinny, tall guy, right? So I had a growth spurt of like 16 and then had no muscle whatsoever. You know, like I remember someone, you know, taking a piss at me on the football field once being like, like, your chest goes inwards. They said it was like, so I had all these, yeah, concave chest and I was like so skinny and I got really self-aware of that and stuff. And I didn't even start properly. I was doing these sports, but I never really thought about the idea of putting on the muscle and stuff. I wanted to, and I wanted to know how to do it. But there wasn't like social media and stuff for now. And I know that, you know, we've talked about this. There's a lot of confusing things of how to do things. But also the information is there, readily available to get into that kind of shape. So when I got into drama school, I was looking at theater and thinking, well, how do I make a real career of this? How do I get to be an action guy? How do I get to be in movies?