MORE THAN AN AVERAGE BEAU
JOE ALWYN’S GOT PLENTY TO SAY ABOUT HIS NEW SLAVERY DRAMA - JUST DON’T ASK HIM ABOUT GIRLFRIEND TAYLOR SWIFT, SAYS JAMES MOTTRAM
FAME can be a funny thing. Take Joe Alwyn. The 28-yearold British actor had been doing quite nicely, thank you, appearing in classy movies such as The Favourite and Boy Erased. Then he casually started dating one of the most famous women on the planet, Taylor Swift. All of a sudden, he’s been thrust into a spotlight where everyone is focusing on the man, not the work.
So what is his latest work, then? That would be new movie Harriet, a respectable drama about a remarkable woman, Harriet Tubman. Born into slavery in 19th-century Maryland, she escaped and repeatedly returned to help free others. Fellow British actor Cynthia Erivo plays Tubman; Alwyn gives a great turn as (fictionalised) slave owner Gideon.
‘I just thought it was an amazing story about an amazing woman I knew nothing about,’ he says when we meet at London’s Rosewood Hotel. ‘She’s hugely important. There’s obviously the whole 20-dollar-bill saga – she was meant to be on it but Trump has delayed that.’
In May, the US president vetoed her likeness being used until he’s left the White House. Alwyn adds: ‘I was shocked there hasn’t been a film made about her before.’ Blessed with delicate features, blue eyes and sandy-blond hair, Alwyn is classic leading-man material (he’s already modelled for Prada), so props for playing such a vile person. ‘I found it hard, with a character like Gideon,’ he admits. ‘To connect with someone like that is pretty much impossible. The idea of slavery is obviously repulsive so where do you find a way in?’ In person, Alwyn is quietly confident, . Alwyn. starring as slave. owner Gideon. in Harriet. albeit wary when it comes to questions straying too close to Swift. Amid rumours they’ve got engaged, they’ve kept their relationship on lockdown.
There’s been the odd Instagram post (she bigged up The Favourite, in which Alwyn played Emma Stone’s hubbie, Baron Masham), the odd pap shot (leaving a Bafta after-party holding hands in February), even the odd song lyric (her tune London Boy, with the line ‘took me back to Highgate’). How has he found increasing fame? ‘I don’t really feel any different so I try not to think about it,’ he says. Has he found a way of handling it? ‘Just by ignoring it,’ he replies bluntly. Is that even possible? ‘Increasingly so, yeah. Just by not giving yourself over too much. Being private about what you want to be