Page 287 - Guildhall School Media Highlights Coverage Book - 2019-2020

Hampstead Heath is the most beautiful green space in London. It’s within striking distance for
me, so four times a week I go for a run and an HIIT workout. I’ve also got an unofficial roof
terrace but it’s right on a main road. It’s not exactly relaxing but sometimes you just need
vitamin D.

Are you able to stay in touch with your family?

They’re in Dorset and I FaceTime them every day. We do group chats, which my dad doesn’t
understand! There’s a lot of the camera being very close to faces when you’re having a
conversation! I go, ‘You can step further away!’

Have you tried the Houseparty app?

I’ve used it a bit. I’m going to do a cook-off with some friends over Houseparty next week but
I find loads of them in a week quite stressful so I try to keep it to one a week.

When will you next be on television?

I’m in an episode of a new show called The Great for the streaming service Hulu, which will be
shown on Channel 4. Later in the year I’m in The Crown, playing Mark Thatcher. And the
second series of Year Of The Rabbit — a Channel 4 comedy I appear in — has just been
announced.

Your parents, Edward Fox and Joanna David, are actors, as is
your sister Emilia, your uncle James and your cousin Laurence.
Was it inevitable you followed the same path?

I think it would have been my parents’ keenest desire for me to have become a neurosurgeon,
to be honest! I applied to universities and I auditioned for the Guildhall School of Music &
Drama at the same time. As soon as I walked into that building, I thought, ‘If I get into this
school, this is where I’m going to go.’ It was pulsing with all the kinds of artistic life I wanted
so badly — I wanted to be surrounded by musicians, stage managers and dancers.

Has the Fox name been a blessing or a curse?

A little bit of both. To have met the people I met when I was young was very helpful. But in
auditions if they don’t like what you do, they remember more keenly perhaps than if I had a
different surname and they never call you back ever again. Also, my dad is obviously seen as
the archetype of Englishness. People expect more of the same and I want to do other things
and play different kinds of roles and do different things.

When are you at your happiest?

When I’m in Dorset with my family, being able to go on walks with them, helping my dad
work on the stream in the field at the end of the garden and clearing plastic out of bits of the
wood. Things that give you a further appreciation of the natural world.

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