- Can you handle horror films?

No.

No, I don't watch horror movies.

I couldn't even tell you one,

but it was great working
with Robert Eggers.

That film is gonna scare
the (beep) out of you.

It will scare the living
(beep) out of you.

Hey, it's Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

I'm here with "Esquire"

in this insane castle in
the middle of an island,

and "Esquire" has asked
me to explain some things.

So I'll try and do my best to
explain some things. (laughs)

(upbeat music)

Who can walk on their
hands longer, you or Sam?

I can, me.

To give Sam her credit,

Sam's actually upside down more

than I'm upside down actually.

In the mornings, I'll be
dancing round the kitchen

for the most part.

We have quite a bit of a
morning dance off most mornings.

Sam's most likely upside down

up against a wall somewhere on her head.

You have a good jump.

Explain the vertical skill.

I don't know, it comes from a sort of

like a dance background,
I guess, you know?

There's a lot of speculation

on whether there's a trampoline
or not, but there's not.

There was a reason why.

I'll tell you what, it's funny.

I was in Prague.

I thought I'd do a sort
of series of jumps,

and I did my first one,

and I jumped really high, but nobody knows

that when I landed, I
literally tweaked my knee.

I tweaked my knee, and I
was like hobbling around.

I couldn't jump.

And I was like, damn, I
have like five more jumps

I wanted to do, but everyone was like,

"I don't believe you jumped there.

"That's Photoshop."

And I'm like, "It's not."

How did it feel the first time

you saw yourself in this campaign?

Truth be told, I have four daughters,

all of which just rips dad to pieces.

So, (laughs) my youngest daughter said,

"Dad, you look like a posh dancer

"who thinks they are like
amazing, but really they're not."

You're never gonna be
cool when you're just dad.

You are in peak performance shape.

What's your training regime look like?

I'm actually really fortunate

I found out an incredible
trainer, David Kingsbury,

who trained Hugh Jackman for "Wolverine."

He trained me for this.

I'd never been in such crazy shape.

It was extreme.

There was so much discipline behind it.

You don't drink alcohol.

You eat clean.

You know, you're on such
a different sort of regime

that it's such a reset, and it was great.

And then I try and sort of stay

in that kind of somewhere in there.

What was the most surprising
thing you learned working

with Brad Pitt on "Bullet Train?" (laughs)

It's a very funny photo of us.

We had all sorts of ways of doing hearts.

Do you what was interesting on that tour,

he had these beautiful cashmere shirts,

God's Own Cashmere, which I found out

that pretty much everybody had,

but I didn't find that gift in my hotel,

but Joey King, she had a
beautiful cashmere shirt.

Good thing.

What do you love most about farm life?

That's everything to me actually.

There's nothing better than
being kind of like back at home

and out in the countryside.

Kind of keeping busy outside of work,

it's nice to have like
a hobby, to be creative,

to be kind of immersed in something.

It started with like really
enjoying cooking for the family,

and then it was like, well,
actually I wanna learn more

about where those ingredients come from.

And then it's like, well, you know,

the fresher, the better and more organic.

And then it was like, well,
then I started gardening,

and then it was a vegetable garden,

and you start to get
more involved with that.

And then it just got
further and further out.

And now I have pigs.

I'm looking at getting a couple cows.

You know, it's just stuff like that,

but it kind of keeps you busy,

and it's kind of like it's
just a sort of a thing

that's for you, you know?

Tom Ford personally shaved
Aaron Taylor-Johnson's

Golden Globe winning mutton chops.

Tom is so particular.

He's got such an eye for detail,

and he knows exactly what he wants,

and that's kind of the beauty of Tom

is that like there's structure and form,

and I think he just wanted
to kind of craft the look.

And I was so open to him just doing that

because I like playing characters,

and I like when you when
you jump onto something,

and you get to start to shed
yourself and then just start

to sort of put together
these other characters.

It doesn't really matter
how you kind of find it.

Like you can start from
the physical aspect

all the way through to like
the psychological aspects

of your character, but
they sort of kind of merge

at the same time.

How do you get into the
mindset of a psychopath?

Like anything, you're doing
your research, aren't you?

And then you're just
absorbing and soaking up,

and you're being a sponge for all of that.

And then you want to, you know,
adopt some of those nuances

and these bad habits and things like that

and then sort of bring them
out and play with them on set.

So yeah, it was just a very
toxic mindset you gotta be in.

If you had to have dinner
with one of your characters,

who would you choose and why?

So I got "Kraven the Hunter" here.

I got Lieutenant Ford from "Godzilla."

Isaac, "The Wall," no.

Ray Marcus, absolutely not.

Friedrich Harding from
"Nosferatu," I just played,

he'd be quite a laugh for dinner actually.

He'd be quite a laugh for dinner.

What's the most surprising
thing you learned

about John Lennon while
playing him in "Nowhere Boy?"

What was kind of
interesting about that story

was the impact of what rock and roll

and what Elvis sort of inhabited
like this effect on women.

And I think in this story,
we was kind of playing

with the themes of these
maternal figures around him.

He was living with his aunt Mimi,

but he sort of discovered
his mother a bit late,

but she was into rock and
roll, and then he saw Elvis,

and he saw this effect
that he had on women.

It was like, okay, I want that attention,

but not from everybody else.

All he wanted was the attention

from, you know, that
one person, his mother.

What's a cheat day look like for you?

Lots of pizza, man.

Pizza and pasta.

On the day of wrap of "Kraven,"

I had a pizza truck turn up,

and we all just munched on pizza.

That's good.

The character Kraven is one

of Spider-Man's notorious villains.

He's quite a big dude.

I remember looking at the comic books

and thinking his arm's really, really big,

but also, you know, it's
his stomach as well,

which is a bit of a contradiction really,

because if you want to put on some size,

you've gotta eat a lot, but
you're not really gonna end up

with a washboard stomach.

So that was quite tricky,

but I did train really hard,

spent, you know a good six
months training really hard

to put on size, so I had
that kind of physicality

for this character.

Also, the action side of
things is really agile,

so, you know, I really
wanted to show his movement.

His technical sort of
skillset is that he tracks

and hunts down his prey.

So, you know, that's really important.

What seems really interesting, I mean,

it is something that inherently is a part

of the character and the
introduction to Kraven

in this movie.

So, I think it's really
interesting how Kraven's connection

to his iconic lion vest
is in the comic books.

So I think we wanna stay true and integral

to the comic books, and, you
know, it's really important

to give the comic book
fans what they've seen

and grown up with and try
and translate that to cinema.

So, that took some really a lot of time

and thought into how we
would get to that place.

Oh, that was it.

Thanks for watching.

All right, cheers. (laughs)