AdelaideWinter

“If you’re not the beautiful one, the quick-witted one, or the ones that are good at games and full of youthful energy, then who are you? And what can you do if you’re the odd one out? Is it possible you’ll ever find a way to fit in?”

“If you’re not the beautiful one, the quick-witted one, or the ones that are good at games and full of youthful energy, then who are you? And what can you do if you’re the odd one out? Is it possible you’ll ever find a way to fit in?”

via @tom_burke_fanpage on instagram

Tom Burke reflected on his late godfather, Alan Rickman, saying he was a “huge influence” on his life.

Rickman died of cancer in 2016 at the age of 69. He was a close friend of Tom Burke’s parents — actors David Burke and Anna Calder-Marshall.

Burke explained what it was like having Rickman as a godfather: “He was very hands-on, very in touch. He took me out of my comfort zone. He was constantly asking me what I wanted to do. I remember once saying that I desperately wanted to dance, and he encouraged that.

“He was always suggesting things for me to read and watch, and he helped pay my fees through RADA.”

Burke worked with his godfather on several occasions, the last of which saw him star in a production of Strindberg’s 'Creditors', directed by Rickman, first at the Donmar Warehouse in London in 2008, and then two years later when it transferred to Brooklyn.

“Then there was a bit of space for a year or two, which Tom didn’t know were two very important years.” During that time, Rickman’s health worsened before his eventual death from pancreatic cancer in 2016, aged 69.

Even now, Burke says, “there’s an Alan bit of my brain that’s always there.” He gave an example from when he appeared in an episode of 'The Crown', playing the priest Derek “Dazzle” Jennings opposite Helena Bonham Carter’s Princess Margaret.

“There’s a bit where Helena first sees me down the corridor. The director said, ‘I’d like to see you improvise a bit.’ Then I heard Alan’s voice in my head saying, ‘Dancing should be the first thing they do.’ And they did dance down that corridor. I thought it really set the mood of that relationship.”

“Even if you only met him once, he could become a momentary huge influence in your life. He had a way of asking very penetrating questions, often without necessarily meaning to. People would walk away and make quite big life decisions.” ❤️

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‘Mr Bennet, I have something to tell you. I’m afraid it’s very provoking news. Would you like to know what it is?’ Mr Bennet lowered his paper and looked over it evenly at his wife. ‘Whatever my wishes in the matter, I am sure you intend to tell me.’ ‘Mary needs spectacles. The oculist says she cannot see without them. There, Mr Bennet!’ She looked about her with the consciousness of having delivered a very significant and troubling piece of information.

It was Elizabeth who spoke first. ‘Surely, Mama, it is good to know what can be done to help Mary. If she needs spectacles, ought she not have them? It must be very hard for her to struggle on without them if she cannot see as well as she should.’

Mrs Bennet uttered a stricken little cry. ‘Really, Lizzy, what can you mean? It is a dreadful misfortune for her! Spectacles are for doddering old men, not for young girls of eighteen! I refuse to believe that she really needs them. No one in my family has ever been so afflicted before. We Gardiners all have perfect sight.’ ‘But, Mama,’ continued Elizabeth, ‘you do so little close work and read so rarely that you may not know whether you need them or not.’

‘How can you say such a thing! No one enjoys a book more than I do. “Read so rarely”, indeed!’ ‘You are forgetting, my dear, that I myself wear glasses,’ added Mr Bennet. ‘I should not like to think of myself as an old man, doddering or otherwise, but I admit I should be quite incapable of study without them.’

‘You are teasing me, Mr Bennet, but you know the truth of what I say. A man may wear spectacles, I suppose, even a young man, especially if he is a lawyer or a clergyman or suchlike, and no one will speak ill of him. For a young woman it is quite a different thing. What do you think people will say when they see Mary in them? Who will want to marry her then?’

Mr Bennet looked thoughtful. ‘Perhaps one of those very men you have just described will offer for her, a wearer of spectacles himself, boldly indifferent to the scorn of all the neighbourhood. Indeed, it may be the very thing that brings them together.’

DONÁL FINN as TOM HAYWARD in