'I cried the entire time reading it'

Actors Tom Hiddleston and Chiwetel Ejiofor, and director Mike Flanagan, share the joy to be found in Stephen King adaptation The Life of Chuck - the film is in cinemas this week

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Flanagan first read The Life Of Chuck in April 2020.

t's well documented that Tom Hiddleston is a man who likes to dance. A decade ago the actor showcased his moves on Alan Carr's Chatty Man (it was a whole thing, Google it) and in January he shared his signature dance move on Graham Norton's chat show (he called it 'Just keep swimming').

In his latest role though, as the titular character in The Life Of Chuck, he received "a fast track course in classical dance."

Directed by Mike Flanagan-the American horror filmmaker known for The Haunting of Hill House and Doctor Sleep-and based on the novella by Stephen King (Carrie, The Shining), it features a "free and spontaneous" dance sequence, in which Hiddleston, 44, fully lets loose.

"I spent just over a month, every day, learning all these different [dance] styles; jazz, swing, cha-cha, Charleston, polka, bossa nova, salsa," says the Thor and The Night Manager actor.

"I loved doing it. Chuck seems, in the external world, like an ordinary guy with an ordinary job, wearing an ordinary suit and probably unremarkable on the street. And then he puts the briefcase down, and he starts dancing and then you realise that this is an explosion of freedom and joy that is actually an expression of his childhood and the things he loved when he was a boy, his connection with his grandmother who raised him, who taught him to dance in the kitchen and showed him old movies with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, and Cabaret and All That Jazz.