Last update: 23.11.2018
Wife, four daughters, three dogs, five chickens... The 26-year-old actor carries life experience a man who is at least twice his age.
While I was waiting for Aaron Taylor-Johnson to arrive at a diner on the Eastside of Los Angeles, I found myself thinking that I felt like I was about to go on a blind date. You have no idea who will walk through that door now.
At 26, Aaron has almost 20 years of acting experience under his belt, he knows and can do much more than most of his peers. It's funny that we saw each other in last time in 2014, then he was the real-life embodiment of his superhero name Quicksilver, which he successfully embodied in the film “Avengers: Age of Ultron”. Before this, I encountered him in a metamorphosis before “Anna Karenina”, where he subsequently played Count Vronsky (white-haired and mustachioed); even earlier, he perfectly got used to the image of a vengeful super-nerd in the series “Kick-Ass”. ) (you could see him somewhere under the avalanche of white curls).
Well, the most significant for his breakthrough in cinema was his work on the role of young John Lennon with a cigarette behind his ear, in the film “Becoming John Lennon” (English: Nowhere Boy), which was directed by the British film director in 2009 Sam Taylor-Wood, who later became his wife and mother of his two daughters.
The experience gained on the set of Nowhere Boy diametrically changed the course of Taylor-Johnson's life and pushed him to become more responsible and courageous. He became a father at the age of 18, and married at the age of 22, taking two stepdaughters into the family and taking new surname(he and Taylor-Wood both changed their surnames to Taylor-Johnson).
Since then, he has played a leading role in a kind of Hollywood domestic idyll, tending his own garden and chicken coop, visiting an organic meat shop, preparing fresh eggs from his chickens for the daughters of Mses Wylda Rae, whose six and Romy Hero, who is five and loves his wife Sam very much. For the record, she is 23 years older than him.
First awards season
Last year, he had to resort to the services of a shaman, who cleansed his body of the consequences of a three-month binge. He had to drink so seriously to turn into the Texas psychopath Ray, whom he played in the film Nocturnal Animals, second title " Nocturnal animals") Tom Ford. As Ray, he spent much of 2015 looking like the Lion King's homeless brother.
Then he metamorphosed into an elegant man, clad in immaculately pressed Tom Ford suits, and embarked on a six-month tour to celebrate the awards and nominations season for Nocturnal Animals. His next role as a military sniper in the soon-to-be-released film The Wall added large doses of strong Pabst Blue Ribbon beer to his diet.
When we met today, it seemed to me that he had somehow changed again. He chuckles when I tell him about my first impression of him. appearance- dressed like a retired military man from the 50s - khaki pants, a short-sleeved shirt with a picture of a motorcycle over a white tank top with a pair of army dog tags on a chain. “The worst thing was when my daughter was just graduating kindergarten, and she needed to make an album about the impressions of the past year with her photographs,” he says. “Every photo of her was: her, her mother and some new guy: With short hair, with a long mustache and without a mustache, a bearded, skinny soldier... The question arose: “Who the hell is this?”
If Nowhere Boy was the film that had the greatest impact on the former Johnson's personal life, then Nocturnal Animals was the turning point for his career. After the film was released at the end of 2016, Taylor-Johnson appeared before the eyes of the viewer in the image of a mature man. Its hero, the rapist and murderer Ray, is the depraved heart of the film, as magnetic as it is sadistic, as powerful as it is comely, somewhat similar to Travis Bickle from Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.
It’s a pity that he was not nominated for an Oscar, and Dev Patel received the BAFTA Award that year. But he is not at all disappointed. But rather, on the contrary, he is cheerful and energetic, like a man who can finally catch his breath after his first awards season. “In some ways I even feel relieved,” he says. “And the question here is not that I don’t know how to be grateful or that I’m gloating. I just find it difficult to cope with this level of attention.”
How a hero is born
Awards ceremonies “absolutely dumbfound” him. At the Golden Globes, he gave a refreshingly informal speech in his matter-of-fact Baginghamshire style, thanking his wife "for putting up with me - I wasn't very nice in the role." Taylor-Johnson hates talking about herself. He would rather show me a video on his iPhone of his daughter performing a unique dance to the song Queen“Another One Bites The Dust,” or a photograph of a spouse performing an advanced yogic pose with an arched back against a wall.
He is noble and unpretentious, from that category of people who truly reveal themselves only in the circle of close people or while working for film set with complete dedication. And it's hard to believe that such crazy energy could come from such a reserved person, but then let's just remember Robert De Niro.
Taylor-Johnson has no problem making speeches in public, he just doesn’t feel the need for it, he has an incredible balance of youthful haste with emotional maturity, a sensitive soul and a powerful body. In The Wall, he plays a US Army soldier who is literally pinned back to the wall by an unseen Iraqi sniper after his partner, played by John Cena, is killed. The result is a thriller that promises to be psychologically intense, and Taylor-Johnson maintains that state single-handedly for most of the film. The Wall was directed by Doug Liman, best known for his work on the Jason Bourne series.
“When you get used to a role and are in a state of such psychological tension, you end up carrying it with you and cannot get rid of it on your own.”
Aaron actively prepared for this role. While immersed in research into post-traumatic stress disorder, the actor found friends with military connections, including Bradley Cooper, who played main role in the film "Sniper" (English: American Sniper - "American Sniper"). He introduced Aaron to military veteran Jacob Schick, one of the founders of 22Kill, an organization that was created as a support group for ex-servicemen (named in honor of the approximately 22 suicides committed on Veterans Day in the United States between 1999 and 2010).
He subsequently went to an event hosted by 22Kill in Boston. "These guys are very simple people", he says. “Some of them have been to hell and back. This was the most moving event for [eyewitnesses]: men who you consider very courageous military personnel openly talk about their struggle with PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome). Some went so far as to put a gun to their head, many had thoughts of suicide, they are kept afloat by the spirit of camaraderie, friendships, jokes ... "
Nick “The Reaper” Irving (famous for his 33 confirmed kills in his first three months in Iraq) is “one of my best mates right now. He's a super cool dude, a real sweetheart." Taylor-Johnson also received support during his research Nobel laureate- war photographer Lynsey Addario (eng. Lynsey Addario) and Jane Horton (eng. Jane Horton), a veteran and family lawyer, whom he met by chance while practicing at the shooting range. Her husband, Christopher Horton, was a sniper who was killed in action in Iraq.
He also spent time with sniper trainees at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. “Not many of them go through the six-week course,” says Taylor-Johnson. “10 graduates out of 30. One of the targets was 1356 meters away to hit the target. you must know everything about the wind and the earth's axis. It's just amazing." All these acquaintances and meetings had a serious impact on the character of his character in the film.
Taylor-Johnson seriously worked on increasing his weight before the film in order to achieve a military physique. He managed to add 13 to his 85 kilograms. “It was food and gym, food and gym,” he says. “But this weight gain was very different from the system I followed for The Avengers. There I ate clean, high quality protein to look healthy. But here it was shit. I ate fast food all the time and felt like an SUV full of canned goods.”
In order to fully connect with the image of his character, as in the case of Ray, Taylor-Johnson spent two months living and breathing his character, even smelling like him. “I was drinking cases of cheap beer,” he says. “Chewing gum with a tobacco flavor was the worst thing. In order to spit periodically, I learned to accumulate saliva in my mouth. I got terrible, rancid breath. My wife was horrified by the whole thing."
The Taylor-Johnson way of life appears to be based on some kind of cycle of abuse and purification. In order to embody the disgusting Ray, he smoked, pumped up on beer, watched documentaries about serial killers and didn't cut his nails for three months to "feel the toxicity inside and out." And after such a “transformation” he did not want to bring this negative energy to the house of his wife and children and after filming, he set about “expelling Ray.”
“When you get into a role and are in such a state of psychological tension, you end up carrying it with you and cannot get rid of it on your own,” he says. “I realized I needed a detox from it all and turned to a very gifted woman shaman who does reiki and acupuncture [acupuncture]. This was not my first experience of such cleaning; I had already carried out this procedure after working with Oliver Stone on the film Savages, where he played a drug dealer.
The Secret of Balance
Finally, after celebrating the completion of The Wall, he became sober again in January. "I'm not in AA or NA, and don't belong to any similar organizations", he says. "I can just stop." All these metamorphoses associated with getting into character are one of the big reasons why Aaron Taylor Johnson doesn't work on more than one project a year. He needs “two to three months to smoothly transform from one character to another. Then there are a lot of other day-to-day things to do, like gardening or cooking or just spending time with your kids.” IN this moment he lives through the Japanese culinary period and gets very animated when he starts talking about his ancient clay pots.
“I stock up on fresh seaweed, which I cook over rice with toasted sesame oil and sake,” he says. “I add a couple of eggs to this dish while it’s cooking, then some daikon sprouts. And of course, the final chord in the form of an unsurpassed presentation of the entire dish.” He also tidied up a piece of land on the slope of his garden. “I like my world to be calm,” he says. “Being constantly in an acting environment is extremely difficult; jumping from project to project you can simply go crazy. Half my friends go crazy and start burning bridges by drinking alcohol and drugs.” For an actor whose career began at the age of six, he seems surprisingly balanced.
“I enjoy being a father more than being an actor.”
Taylor-Johnson grew up in Holmer Green in Buckinghamshire. At the age of six he entered drama school in order to study drama, participate in auditions, learn jazz dance, acrobatics and singing. Three years later, in the West End, he played the murdered son of Macduff on the same stage with Rufus Sewell as Macbeth. At 15, he left school and went to Los Angeles to meet Hollywood agents. In 2006, he successfully auditioned for the role of Young Eisenheim in The Illusionist, then he played the role of Dave Lizewski in the superhero film Kick-Ass by Matthew Vaughn, for which two years later he was nominated for a BAFTA and several other awards.
He went through his “self-destructive phase” two years before he turned 18. “I just went a little crazy,” he told me in 2014 during our 2014 interview about Godzilla. “I spent a lot of money and lived for two years that I can’t even remember. It's about that there comes a time when you have to get everything off your chest before you can move on, right? Because if I hadn't done it then, I would have broken down now. I wouldn't be able to take care of my family, or control myself, or feel responsible enough to do what I do."
Mr Taylor-Johnson's friends call him Benjamin Button, the man who has aged in reverse. “I enjoy being a father more than being an actor,” he says. “I’m still thinking about changing my profession.”
He and his wife alternate between projects, with one staying home while the other is on set. But when Sam Taylor-Wood directed the filming of Fifty Shades of Grey, the whole family went to Canada with her. And most recently, she produced and directed two episodes of the Netflix series, psychological thriller"Gypsy" (eng. Gypsy).
At the end of our conversation, it turned out that the Taylor-Johnsons are working together again on several mysterious projects, including a dance piece on the list, they have also bought the rights to a book, and are working on a film that may appear at Cannes this year.
How to keep a woman happy
He admits that in addition to “a wife, four daughters, two dog women and three chicken women,” he also has his own feminine energies. "I'm happy to say I'm a feminist," he says. “Being a feminist is simply believing in equal rights. Man, woman, gay, straight, white, black - we are all equal.” Taylor-Johnson is currently printing miniatures of all the posters from the global women's march in January to decorate the family bathroom. “When they become young women, they will be ready,” he says of his daughters. “They have a great role model - their mother is one of the strongest, most independent women that I know."
Note to the reader: despite his statement of support for feminism, he has not ceased to be the real man in this family. He still continues to give flowers to his young ladies. I suppose he could probably write an instruction booklet called "How to Keep a Woman Happy." He looks a little confused. “I don’t really analyze our relationship,” he says. “I just know it works. I just feel loved and cared for. We have a very deep connection. We're just in sync."
Johnson is married to Sam Taylor-Wood. The couple got married in June 2012. Around the same time, Johnson changed his last name from Johnson to Taylor-Johnson. Much has been said about the couple's age difference - the wife is more than 20 years older than her husband - but they seem to shrug it off. They have two daughters, Wilda Rosa and Romy Gero. The actor's biography is presented in more detail.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson and his wife Samantha were spotted hitting the snowy slopes in Vancouver, Canada. Married couple, whose age difference is 24 years, were apparently looking for adventure! Instead of sliding through the snow, the pair tried out ziplining in 21C heat. Although the snowy surroundings looked chilly, the warm air allowed Aaron to wear shorts.
Young British actor kept a low profile, wearing a baseball cap with a gray hood and green camouflage shorts. Sam was dressed a little more conservatively in jeans and a thick navy blue jacket. She also wore a baseball cap that covered her eyes in true Hollywood style with large sunglasses. Sam's 15-year-old daughter Angelique joined her mother and stepfather on the trip, and seemed totally fine with the couple's public displays of passion. Even with their equipment, the lovers couldn't help but stop to kiss each other during the zipline. Aaron was in Vancouver because he started filming the new blockbuster Godzilla, which is expected to be released in May 2014.
The Taylor-Johnsons have been in Vancouver for the past few months while Aaron Taylor-Johnson works on the Godzilla movie. In any case, they didn’t even have a day off. Sam Taylor-Johnson and her daughters, Jessie Phoenix, Wilda Rai, and Romy Hiro, came to share Father's Day with Aaron. While dad worked, his daughters tried to apply makeup on themselves. When Aaron is not working, he devotes a lot of time to his family. They live in a rented house, they chat with neighbors, watch the world science channel, have brunch on the weekends, don't pay attention to themselves. special attention, and therefore no one understands who they are...
Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Colin Firth attended a private dinner hosted by Tom Ford to celebrate his new show London Collections: Men in London, England. The men were joined by their adorable wives Sam Taylor-Johnson and Livia Firth. Colin worked with Tom on the film A Single Man in 2009.
And here is the long-awaited one New film Aaron's "Kick-Ass 2" is currently in post-production and is expected to be released on June 28th.
Misalliance or unequal marriage- what does it mean? What is the principle of inequality? Does one of the couple have more money than the other? One of the two is a handsome man, and the other is a sea monster? One is predicted Nobel Prize, and the second one didn’t master the multiplication table? But isn’t the meaning of any marriage about equality, but about love? And to her, the villainess, not only all ages are submissive, but also social strata and intellectual levels too. Love is so blind and evil that you can fall in love... with absolutely anyone: with the old and scary (or old and scary), with the stupid and young, with the poor and lazy. The main thing is that the time, place and mood coincide.
Or, in fact, everything is wrong, what kind of love? People use each other under the guise of elevated relationships - only in an unequal marriage, someone uses someone more.
And if you look from the other side? Perhaps an unequal marriage is a form of charity: one individual, more firmly on his feet, provides all possible assistance to another, let’s say, a beginner. And this beginner pays the established one for everything with his love and devotion. That is, again it turns out to be a mutually beneficial alliance, and nothing more?
Unequal marriage or adoption: Sam Taylor-Wood and Aaron Johnson
It’s not even clear where to start with this marriage. In general, there lived two wonderful people: British director Sam (short for Samantha) Taylor-Wood and British actor Aaron Johnson.
Aaron Johnson is primarily associated with the film “Kick-Ass,” in which he played the main role. Director Taylor-Wood is little known to the average film consumer, except that Becoming John Lennon pops up. So, it was on the set of this movie in 2009 that Samantha and Aaron met. Something broke out between them, which within literally a year grew into an engagement and the birth of two daughters one after the other.
A classic love story, but with a small caveat: at the time the relationship began, Aaron was barely 18, and Samantha was 42 years old. When the couple got legally married, that is, in 2012, Aaron was 22 years old, and Samantha was 45. The perfect combination, is not it?
The newlyweds adopted a common surname - Taylor-Johnson, and the husband himself brushes aside questions about the strangeness of their relationship: “I am old at heart, and Sam is young. We don't see the age difference, we just see each other."
Actually, it’s clear what attracted the young and very sweet Aaron Johnson to the mature Samantha – and it’s definitely not her divinely beautiful appearance. Sam Taylor-Wood is a Dame of the Order of the British Empire, a very famous British photographer and critically acclaimed director. In addition, it has been officially confirmed that Sam Taylor-Wood will direct the film adaptation of the erotic bestseller “50 Shades of Grey.” Sam is strong and talented woman, which, moreover, has very significant connections in the film business. Her personal qualities are evidenced by the fact that she managed to win twice (!) oncological diseases– bowel cancer at 30 and breast cancer three years later.
Misalliance or a kick in the ass... evolution: Matt Bomer and Simon Halls
Every time a handsome man admits that he is gay, somewhere in the world a fairy dies. When in 2012, Matt Bomer publicly announced that he had been homosexual for a long time, that he lived in a de facto marriage with a certain Simon Halls and was raising three sons... Then, apparently, a whole flock of fairies died from tears.
Don’t think anything like that, the editors of the site are for freedom of expression everywhere, including in bed. We are sincerely, albeit reluctantly, happy for his friend, lover and partner Simon, a little-known Hollywood screenwriter.
But... how could he?!
Friendly union or unequal marriage? Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness
A long time ago, around 1995, the aspiring and still unknown actor Hugh Jackman met the attractive and very popular actress and producer Deborra-Lee Furness, who was also 13 years older than him. Cupid flew by and, having nothing to do, shot an arrow at the couple, which ignited unquenchable passionate love in their hearts. The couple could not have biological children together, so, after some time, they adopted a boy, and after a while, a girl.
It would seem, what’s strange here? The fact is that Hugh Jackman has long been seriously accused of... unconventional sexual orientation, and his wife is considered a successful cover.
The actor himself, and his other half too, angrily reject such insinuations, but people’s rumors cannot calm down. The reason for fueling the rumors is the couple themselves: one look at Hugh next to Deborra... Well, in general, doubts arise.
Adding fuel to the fire is Jackman’s long, long friendship with John Palermo, Hugh’s assistant, manager and colleague in all his endeavors. Together they (that is, the three of them, Hugh, Deborra and John) organized the production company Seed Productions, which, among other things, promotes films from the Wolverine universe.
And all three of them behave like kind, good and, moreover, honest best friends with each other.
Office romance or vampire misalliance: Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer
Anna Paquin is something of a prodigy in Hollywood. Not only did she receive an Oscar for her very first film role (the film “The Piano”, 1993), but she was also 11 years old! Then, however, her career progressed with varying degrees of success, staggering from low-budget films to X-Men. Until the very moment when Anna passed the casting for the main female role HBO's upcoming vampire project True Blood. This is where...
Although at this stage the story is shrouded in darkness: some say that Anna met the little-known English actor Stephen Moyer already on the set, but most are inclined to think that Paquin, in love and approved for the role of Sookie Stackhouse, put pressure on the producer... and got Moyer one of main male roles.
Be that as it may, this changed everything. With each episode, the script was more and more adjusted to the “human” vampire Bill, moving further and further from the original work of Charlaine Harris.
As a result, the author could not stand it and left the project, refusing to work on the script, and Moyer’s career within the framework of a single series took off sharply. If in the first seasons he simply played his character, then in the fifth he already became the director of one of the episodes, and in the sixth he was at the helm of the first episode of the season. In addition, by the sixth season, the whole world - excuse me, the plot - had already revolved around Moyer's character. It’s hard to say what will happen next, but so far Anna and Stephen have given birth to twins, a girl and a boy.
26-year-old British actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who is known to many for his films “Nocturnal Animals” and “Becoming John Lennon,” never ceases to amaze his fans. In 2012, the young and quite attractive actor married a woman who is 23 years older than him, and today it became known that he dedicated a tattoo to her.
Aaron unusually congratulated his wife on her birthday
On March 4, the famous British screenwriter, photographer, director and artist Samantha Taylor-Johnson celebrated her 50th birthday. On this occasion, her husband Aaron decided to do an interesting thing - get a tattoo with his wife’s name “Sam” in the heart area. The actor captured the changes on his chest on his phone camera and posted the photo on the Internet, captioning it like this:
"You will always be in my heart. Happy birthday dear Sam!”
Read also - Dakota Johnson is wary of filming the '50 Shades of Grey' sequel
Sympathy that quickly grew into love
Aaron and Samantha met while auditioning for the film Becoming John Lennon in 2009. Then the director tried to choose an actor who was still unknown, but had considerable talent. At that time, Sam was already 42 years old, she was raising 2 small children from her first marriage and was trying to forget her recent cancer. Aaron was a 19 year old boy who was just starting out acting career and dreamed of a big family. In his interview, Taylor-Johnson said the following about Samantha:
“When I saw her, I realized that this was not just sympathy, but love for life. I really wanted to start a family with her, and for Sam to become the mother of our children. That's how it all happened. I am very grateful to her for this."
In addition to Aaron, Samantha also talks about her unexpected marriage with the young actor. This is how she remembers those times:
“Aaron struck me immediately and instantly. When we first met, I caught myself thinking that I liked him. Then everything developed so rapidly that it simply makes no sense to divide it into periods. A year after we met, we already had our first daughter together, Wilda Ray, and in 2012 our second daughter, Romi Hiro. Now I’m happier than ever.”
By the way, in his interviews, Aaron Taylor-Johnson quite often compares himself to Benjamin Baton, believing that he is old at heart. But his wife Sam, on the contrary, reminds him of a 20-year-old girl.
