JANUARY 2021

It’s morning in NEW YORK as Thomas Doherty wakes up alone in his room. No wild brunches here, the actor is self-isolating as part of the health and safety procedures ahead of filming an intimate scene. Halfway across the world, it’s wine o’clock and I’m ready for the tea to be served on his musical abilities, that comment from the Pope and why he’s on a remake bender. What else did we talk about? That’s a secret I’ll definitely let you in on in this interview.

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After the remake of High Fidelity, now Gossip Girl. Are existing frameworks something that you particularly enjoy?

[laughs] It does seem that I'm always in a reboot. I do think it's very interesting to see how the framework and the nature of the times, be it politically, economically, socially or culturally, can be transposed into later times, and see how those play out. With High Fidelity, the gender reversal was really interesting in light of how the power dynamics have shifted, and how prevalent the topic is in our society. With Gossip Girl, the original wasn’t so long ago but the world has changed so much since.

So has the ability to play Boyz II Men on the guitar come in handy to seduce anyone after that?

No…

That’s a very wistful “no”.

I don't think I ever will. The older I get, the creepier it will be, so I think my time with Boyz II Men on the guitar is done. I did learn to play a couple of songs on the guitar though, and I loved it.

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Any temptation to take those new skills into a new career?

Funnily enough, no. I’ve tried to pick up the guitar again. But either you have it, or you don’t. And right now, I’m pretty sure I don’t. But I love musical theatre and want to do that so bad.

Maybe Gossip Girl is your chance for that, given how musically inclined your castmates are. Starting with Eli Brown, who is also in this issue.

Yeah! I walked into his apartment where he’s got like 7 or 8 guitars. He’s very passionate about music, phenomenal with the guitar. All the cast is.

It does also play into the idea that the human experience has some fundamental similarities, but that you live, learn and adapt to a given framework. That it’s what you make of it: how you write your own take on life is what matters.

Yeah, it's like continuous, isn't it? Yeah, I never thought about it that way before. But yeah, it is. I mean, obviously, my reservation about reboots is that you’re working with classics, or a cultural icon, so it’s filled with nostalgia for so many people. There’s always that kind of worry, but with a rebirth it’s about different generations coming along and appreciating the different “ages” of a story.

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Do you let this past of the narrative affect how you play? Or do you just take it as it is, and interpret each character as a standalone?

Definitely the latter. I have to kind of blank that, otherwise it would just be replicating something. For High Fidelity, it never crept into my mind, although there’s a comical side of being intimate with Zoe Kravitz, knowing that I was playing a character her mother had plaid. For Gossip Girl, it took me a minute to put it aside because there were all these expectations and also the comparisons to Chuck Bass who was such a massive character. My character is perhaps a bit similar to his, so I needed to shake off those expectations of what you associate with him in order to find my own character.

After Ed Westwick, you’re continuing a proud tradition of handsome Brits playing decadently wealthy Americans.

You’re welcome, America. [Laughs.]

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On a scale of 1 to “alumni”, how close was your high school experience to St. Jude’s and Constance, especially with British boarding schools?

Although I went to the Royal High School in Edinburgh, the similarity stops at the uniform of a shirt, tie and blazer that I had to wear. But what’s weird is how different things are. When I was in school, just 8 years ago, I was just a schoolboy, making fires in the woods with my friends and just causing a bit of trouble. No social media, except maybe Facebook near the end. Whereas now I feel that they’re adults. I feel like the social media craze is robbing kids of being kids, or young teenagers. My Gossip Girl character feels like a 45-year-old man stuck in a 17-year-old’s body. He’s sophisticated in so many ways, like his taste in food for example, but at the same time, he’s still not centered as a human because he is only 17 after all. And that’s a bit heartbreaking because it’s like we missed the fun years of wearing rubbish, terrible clothes. They can’t look back on pictures, being so conscious of the world and being inundated with information. It’s kind of sad.

How different is the Gossip Girl universe and its “all-seeing” narrator from the experience of being a public figure in the social media age?

I have not been on Instagram for over two weeks. I'm just done. Too crazy and so addictive. It creates this invisible all-seeing eye that doesn’t exist but still perpetuates itself. And it's growing arms and legs, getting worse. To have to do social media just to fit in feels crazy. And I'm not taking any moral high ground here at all. I definitely indulge, both for my career and to connect to others. But on the whole I feel that despite an initial positive intension, it has just cascaded into something incredibly poisonous.

When you say it like that, it’s like the Black Mirror version of the promises of social media.

Yes, Jesus, it is. It's some cancerous psych tumor that keeps growing. And there's no end in sight.

Look at us complaining about the young(er) and social media like old biddies. Add to that the fact that the Pope recently said gossip was a plague worse than Covid. Should we listen to His Holiness?

He’s probably had enough of hearing about the disgusting behavior of some members of the church. Oh, don’t get me too heavy. And I was brought up very Catholic, too.

Then we can’t be friends! My father was a Protestant from Glasgow.

A Ranger’s man, then…

We are heading into very controversial territory, Mr Doherty!

Here’s another controversial thing: people need to stop using God and religion as justification for committing evil and inflicting sadness on others. I think that you shouldn't teach religion to children until they're 18. And then, they can figure out for themselves if they want to be religious or not. In that way, people would be more in touch with their spiritual side and their true nature which I believe is fundamentally about compassion and love. Because the age-old conversation about God and about religion feels like it's just been completely misinterpreted and exploited, with those who are more concerned about “doing good to go to Paradise”, rather than doing good because it’s the decent, humane and right thing to do.

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Isn’t that what 2020 brought us, in a way? An opportunity to sit for a moment and consider our life choices.

Definitely. Being from capitalist societies, we’re constantly chasing after the next thing, feeling like you’re just a step away from something. Think about it: when we’re small, we go straight into a system, practically from the minute we’re born. Learning the alphabet, then math. Onwards with primary, middle then high school. From there, you’re thinking about college, then about getting a job. After that, white picket fence. This whole time, we’ve not stopped one second to think about who you are or what you want to do with that life. No self-exploration, no self-expression. That’s not being present. What you need is to stop, connect to yourself and flow from that place as opposed to constantly trying to manufacture your life.

Is that what you were doing, too?

For a long time, I felt like I was doing the wrong thing, almost trying to fit myself from the outside. But I found that if I connected to myself, the right things started to happen. Sure, to some extent, I was filling needs but always to build a certain foundation of connectivity to myself. Looking at myself, I felt conscious that I’d put myself in a bit of a safety box of being that schmoozy, smoldering thing because I saw that it worked. But I’m definitely ready to shed that skin. I’m very fortunate, especially with working on an amazing show, but what I really want is just to get to know myself with no other incentive to gain other than knowing myself. At this point in my life, I’m focusing on myself, not what I can get or make or what my goals are. And I might be a complete asshole, but at least it'll be me.

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Full feature in our Issue 10 SS21

Interview by Lily Templeton

Photography by Hadar Pitchon

Casting & production IMAGEMAGINE cs