Hero Fiennes Tiffin Is Totally Fine With Playing the Villain

When a person has a name similar to their job—i.e. a water researcher named “Andrew Drinkwater”—they’re filed under a category called “nominative determinism.” When Buzzy Cohen played and hosted Jeopardy!, for example, he validated the hypothesis that people work close to what their name implies (perhaps the Jeopardy! buzzer brought him to the game show).

Hero Fiennes Tiffin would like to have a word with the creators of this concept. It isn’t working for him. He can’t stop playing evil.

“It’s weird, [because] my name’s Hero, and I keep getting cast as villains,” he says, speaking about his turn as cruel slave trader Santo Ferreira in the brilliant new action flick The Woman King. Pair that with playing a young Voldemort in the Harry Potter series (he’s Ralph Fiennes’ nephew) and the somewhat emotionally abusive boyfriend of After and you’ll get the full picture.

Fiennes Tiffin is fine with the irony. He laughs it off. It’s an honor to be included at all! In fact, he says, it’s easier to make audiences love you than hate you, and he’s up for the challenge.

“You have to care a lot more,” he says. “I’ve played a few villainous characters. Now, [in real life] I’m accustomed to making people happy as a success, an achievement. But it’s nice to do a bit of both, isn’t it? It’s nice to take them on a roller coaster, make them happy, make them sad.”

While his Santo Ferreira should make The Woman King viewers viscerally angry, his Hardin Scott that will have After fans in tears. For those who haven’t been keeping up: After was originally a Wattpad fanfiction about Harry Styles and the rest of his One Direction crew, hence the name “Hardin Scott.” (The initials are the same, and the rest of his friends have the same initials as the One Direction boys: Nate for Niall, Logan for Liam, Landon for Louis, and Zed for Zayn.)

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In After Ever Happy, the fourth installment of the cheesy teen romance saga, Fiennes Tiffin returns opposite Josephine Langford as Tessa, his love interest. Hardin isn’t like fun-loving Harry Styles at all, though. He’s full of cuss words. He punches walls. He kicks doors in and shouts, “Fucking Trevor!” while Harry Styles is on stage in a feather boa, pouncing around like a sprightly elf.

“To be honest, that works in everyone’s favor,” Fiennes Tiffin says of the separation between his character and its inspiration. “I’m sure Harry doesn’t want to be defined by a character about him. And I know for a fact that the writer Anna Todd was aware of that and reluctant to overstep any boundaries or be intrusive. It started as an inspiration, and I think everyone will be happy that they’ve gone different ways.”

After is a goofy, goofy franchise. Again, it’s based on a Wattpad story. Fiennes Tiffin seems to realize the inherent absurdity of this, chuckling about the scene where has to punch a wall in, or how many cuss words he has to drop in every take. He tells me that he has to wake up (as in, literally act like he’s waking up) too much while filming—in fact, he demonstrates on our Zoom, pretending to be asleep and then popping his eyes open, looking around. He’s good at it. Must be all the practice. But what does he do the most? Scream “TESSA!” at his sweet, loving girlfriend.

“If we rehearse a scene where Hardin says ‘Tessa’ once, between rehearsals and takes, it’s got to be five on average,” he says, as he tries to deduce how many times he’s said Tessa’s name across the entire franchise. “It’s got to be over a thousand [times]. Probably over two thousand, three thousand. If any fans have a lot of free time and want to figure it out and do the math, get on it and let me know.”

Tessa and Hardin are on-again, off-again, but by the end of After Ever Happy, they’ve parted ways. (Worry not: A fifth entry was filmed in secret, which means the pair will surely be back together soon.) Hardin’s final scene is shot in a bookstore, where he reads from his book about his love with Tessa while she gazes on from outside.

I had to ask: Does he see the parallels between this and Taylor Swift’s All Too Well short film?

“I haven’t [seen it],” he confesses. “Essentially, she copied us? We’ll get the lawyers on it and see what we can do,” he then jokes.

When they’re not arguing, Tessa and Hardin are having sex. That’s pretty much all they do: argue, break up, and have sex. Before they shot the third movie, the After team introduced an intimacy coordinator to guide the many sex scenes in their films, and Fiennes Tiffin is grateful for the addition. He was happy working with Langford before, but now, they can get a little more creative. In the third film, for example, the pair get hot and sweaty on a gym bench.

“Like a stunt choreographer or dance choreographer, [an intimacy coordinator] also can gauge how comfortable you are,” he says. “Sometimes, they don’t need to do anything. Sometimes, it’s like when a director says, ‘You guys are playing a scene so well, it’s all realistic, it’s honest, I buy it, I don’t need to say anything.’ But it’s for the times when it doesn’t go right.”

He compares it to the hours of work put into stunt work in The Woman King—if you’re going to have something special, you’re going to need to hire a specialist. And speaking of that, The Woman King happens to include some of the finest stunts in recent memory, resulting in a moving action film beyond comparison.

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“This was such an important story for so many young girls around the world,” he says of the movie, now in theaters. “I don’t know a type of person who wouldn’t like this film. It has something for everyone in it.”

He’s right! The Woman King stars Viola Davis as the leader of the Agojie, an all-women army looking to defeat a neighboring tribe and remove their Dahomey Kingdom from the slave trade. Despite playing one of her character’s nemeses, abrutal Portuguese slave trader, meeting Davis was Fiennes Tiffin’s favorite part of film shoot.

The pair don’t share any scenes together, but at base camp in South Africa, they did get to meet. Fiennes Tiffin showed up on set to see Davis giving her input on a scene, wearing a onesie and some killer shades. When she was done (and everyone agreed with her opinion, naturally), she threw off the shades and gave Fiennes Tiffin the warmest welcome ever.

“[Viola] exudes an experienced boss level energy,” he says. “She’s really good at playing the maternal, caring, making sure everyone’s okay, while also playing the role of making sure stuff gets done on time. The only thing I wish is that I had more scenes with her directly.”

As one might guess, things don’t end so well for Santo Ferreira in the film. They’re not looking so great for Hardin, either, thanks to his heart-wrenching breakup. But Fiennes Tiffin signs off chipper as ever, ready for whatever wicked (or maybe kind and sweet, like his real life demeanor) role heads his way next.

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