Matthew Goode: ‘A great suit is like a suit of armour’
The actor on the secrets of his wardrobe — on and off screen — and his new collaboration with Hackett
Matthew Goode has made a name for himself playing a host of well-spoken Brits on screen. He can be seen in such films as Brideshead Revisited, A Single Man and The Imitation Game, and in TV’s Downton Abbey and The Crown, where he was cast as the photographer and film-maker Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, the man who married Princess Margaret. So what role does wardrobe play in helping him inhabit these men?
“A lot, because you are defining the psychology of the character,” he says. “If it’s a period film, then it affects everything — if you’re wearing white tie and tails in the 1920s the garment will hold you in a certain way, it will govern your physicality, how you move. You’ll be very buttoned down and conservative, and it will affect your performance.”
Of course whatever the role, wardrobe is critical. So on those occasions when Goode has been cast against type, it’s there to help. If traditional clothes help you play traditional characters, conversely, a more groovy wardrobe will have the opposite effect. “I just played Bob Evans, who was quite flamboyant,” explains Goode, referencing his recent stand-out performance as the 1970s Hollywood film producer in The Offer, a Paramount Plus TV dramatisation of the making of The Godfather. “As Evans I got to show his personality through colours and textures and the cut of what he wore — like the shape of the lapels of his jacket” — 1970s wide, of course.
Most actors, he says, will tell you that shoes are crucial. “It’s your connection to the ground, to being a grounded character. If you want to feel uptight, then wear tight shoes. [Dustin] Hoffman famously put rocks in his shoe to make him feel uncomfortable.”
Goode says that the costume designers and wardrobe professionals who work with actors are experts in bringing the characters to life. “I have worked with some of the best wardrobe people in the industry.” An extraordinary amount of research goes into ensuring that period pieces are historically accurate. “They know the fabric mills that can produce accurate cloth,” he says. “They’ll remake garments. It’s a wonderful process, making garments because often they just can’t find what is needed. That process makes you as an actor feel very attached to the clothing you are wearing. But you have to let the costume designer dictate. You don’t get to choose.”
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Does he have any input? “I have more input if it’s a modern-day role, and then that’s dependent on the character — these days you’re looking for something in which you’ll feel comfortable; comfort is what we want for modern times.”
In his next film, Freud’s Last Session, out in a couple of weeks, he had a special request. In the movie Goode plays CS Lewis, the creator of The Chronicles of Narnia, opposite Anthony Hopkins as the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. “Tony Hopkins played CS Lewis in Shadowlands,” Goode says, “so I asked the costume designer on Freud’s Last Session if we could nod to Tony’s wardrobe in the other film and put me in a blue suit and a maroon jumper like he wore as CS Lewis. She did. I’m not sure he noticed; but I knew.”
He also confesses to a penchant for wearing hats. “I used to be quite shy and I used to blush,” he says. “So you’ll notice that I’m always under a hat; constantly in hats. Often I’ve introduced a beanie to many characters over the years.” The hats do not please everyone, though: “It’s often to the chagrin of the DOP [director of photography]. ‘I can’t see your face,’ they’d say, though it helped out hair and make-up when it was windy.”
When he’s dressing for himself, he often relies on suiting as a go-to style. “A great suit is like a suit of armour, it’s a confidence booster. And depending on what you go for it can be as conservative or dramatic as you want it to be.”
In his most recent turn in front of the camera, it is indeed tailoring that dominates. This, however, was not for film or TV, but Hackett, which has just opened a new flagship store on New Bond Street in London. For its autumn/winter campaign, it paired Goode with the former F1 driver Jenson Button and sent them to the Highlands for a shoot in which they enjoyed some country pursuits (fishing and falconry among them) while modelling Hackett’s British tailored look.
Goode explains that years ago he had some Hackett suits made for him for a campaign he starred in for the brand, so he was intrigued to discover how things had changed. “The suits I was in back then were very boxy. I went into Hackett to look at their new suits, and I really like the look of the new silhouette. It’s hard to put your finger on what has happened, but the jackets seem shorter, and everything has become a lot more fitted.”
That’s one of the fascinating things about playing characters in different eras, he explains: you get to experience how menswear has changed over time. “The wheel is never reinvented, but when you look at the styles you see how they have evolved.”
The new Hackett flagship store is at 69 New Bond Street, London W1; hackett.com
