Back in 2016 when the first series of BBC drama The Night Manager hit screens, its leading man Tom Hiddleston was catapulted into heartthrob status.
Three months after the show aired and basking in the glow of worldwide adoration, the British actor’s star power soared to the highest of heights when it was revealed he was romancing Taylor Swift, 35.
The unlikely couple caused a media frenzy during their one hot summer together, culminating in the photographs of Tom in a I Love TS tank top during Fourth of July weekend.
While his romance with the world’s biggest chart star fizzled out not long after those July 4th fireworks, Tom has never quite waded through the tide of derision that came in the wake of their split. Some commenters even speculated that ‘Hiddleswift’ cost him the role of James Bond.
But nine years on and on the eve of the release of season two of The Night Manager, its leading man finally seems to be back on solid ground.
At Wednesday night’s London premiere of the show, Tom, 44, proudly walked the red carpet with his actress, playwright, director, and novelist fiancée Zawe Ashton, 41.
Back in 2016 just weeks after the first series of The Night Manager hit screens, its leading man Tom Hiddleston’s star power soared when it was revealed he was romancing Taylor Swift
At Wednesday night’s London premiere of the second series of the show, Tom proudly walked the red carpet with his actress, playwright, director, and novelist fiancée Zawe Ashton
The couple recently confirmed, in a very unflashy way, that they had become parents for the second time.
The announcement, in the form of an Instagram post for a baby bank charity, is one of just a handful of concessions to fans’ interest in their relationship.
Tom and Zawe first met in 2019 while starring together in the Harold Pinter play Betrayal in London’s West End before taking the production to Broadway.
They were romantically linked soon after, making their red carpet debut as a couple at the A-lister-packed Tony Awards in September 2021.
And it was on the equally revered red carpet of the 2022 BAFTAs that it was reported that they were engaged after Zawe was spotted trying to hide a diamond ring under her long sleeve.
They quietly welcomed their first child later that year before Zawe confirmed she was pregnant with the couple’s second child in a Vogue profile. ‘I think it’s like any choice. You make it and then do it as much as you can,’ she once told Tatler of her desire for privacy.
Tom has followed his fiancée’s lead, rarely speaking about their relationship aside from the three word declaration of ‘I’m very happy’ when asked about Zawe in a 2022 interview.
Back in his Hiddleswift days, Tom behaved very differently. Tom and Taylor were first glimpsed out together as a couple in mid-June 2015, just after her breakup from Scottish DJ Calvin Harris.
In 2016 Tom and Taylor caused a frenzy during their one hot summer together, culminating in the photographs of Tom in a I Love TS tank top during Fourth of July weekend
They were constantly seen out together that summer including Instagram posts of their double dates with Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively
By the end of that month, Taylor had introduced Tom to her parents in Nashville and he had introduced her to his mother in England, with pap pictures capturing the family interactions alongside Instagram posts of their double dates with Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.
They were constantly seen out together that summer, inspiring such a frenzy of publicity that after they split, Tom found himself denying allegations that they had engaged in a ‘showmance’.
The actor went on somewhat of a publicity blitz to clear his name, at one point insisting the I Love TS shirt was merely a private ‘joke’ between ‘friends’.
‘The truth is, it was the Fourth of July and a public holiday and we were playing a game and I slipped and hurt my back. And I wanted to protect the graze from the sun and said: “Does anyone have a T-shirt?”‘
A pal of Taylor’s responded by producing the ‘I [heart] TS’ tank top and ‘we all laughed about it,’ Tom insisted. ‘It was a joke.’
After leading spy thriller The Night Manager the Bond rumours started to spread like wildfire for Tom; pictured in series one of The Night Manager with Elizabeth Debicki
There was speculation at the time that his Taylor fling cost the actor what would have been his career-defining role – taking over from Daniel Craig as James Bond when that actor was rumoured to be quitting the franchise.
After leading spy thriller The Night Manager, which drew over 10 million viewers for its finale, the Bond rumours started to spread like wildfire.
Tom’s stratospheric rise through the fame levels with Hiddleswift was considered by some to be his big push into the mainstream which would land him the beloved 007 franchise.
But it wasn’t to be and instead Tom retreated from the box office and the spotlight after being bruised by fame.
His only movie roles over the post-Taylor years was multiple reprisals of his Marvel universe villain Loki and his lone stab at action leading man in 2017’s Kong: Skull Island.
But it wasn’t to be and instead Tom retreated from the box office and the spotlight after being bruised by fame. He’s now returned to the role of Jonathan Pine in The Night Manager
Instead he focused on theatre, describing it as ‘a moment of consideration’, and heavily hinting that his period of enhanced popularity made him cautious about what work he was taking on.
‘A few things crossed my path and I thought carefully about them, but they didn’t feel quite right, so I didn’t do them,’ he told Empire in a 2021 interview.
‘I’d been playing so many different people in so many different parts of the world, and it’s very important to distinguish what’s real in one’s own life, and look after those things.’
He continued: ‘Because if you don’t look after them, they can be lost, or they can be marginalised, and then you come home one day and they’re not there anymore.’
Tom has been quietly living his life behind the scenes, poking his head above the parapet this week for the promo tour for The Night Manager, with Zawe by his side.
Over the past decade Tom has been quietly living his life behind the scenes, poking his head above the parapet this week for the promo tour for The Night Manager, with Zawe by his side
And he is well aware of how much has changed for him over the past decade.
‘I’m 10 years older, [I’ve got] a few more scars on the inside, a few more scars on the outside,’ he told the Hollywood Reporter.
‘I love the fact that I feel I’ve lived more life, and I encouraged everyone I came into contact with to lean into that. I’ve more life experience and more of my own curiosity about the world and the way it is, and I want it to be more courageous, actually, [and] about investigating the soul of this man.’
There’s been major changes for his character Jonathan Pine too. Writer David Farr has reinvented the John le Carré thriller with Pine now living as a low-ranking MI6 officer running a quiet surveillance unit.
While both he and his character have retreated from society over the years, Tom has insisted he could never escape to the shadows completely.
‘I need my real life. I need my people. I love my attachments and my relationships. I’m really happy being me,’ he gushed this week.
