To slip into character as Ichabod Crane on FOX’s Sleepy Hollow, Tom Mison has a secret ritual he tells us about exclusively.
“No one in the world knows this,” Mison says, dropping his voice a bit conspiratorially. “I have a little Sleepy Hollow playlist on a day when the wig and coat are not enough, and that playlist helps a lot.”
He listens to Tom Waits — because who screams “Revolutionary era” more than the gravelly voiced singer? “I am a huge fan,” Mison says of Waits. “I have been lobbying the producers when we reveal the third apocalypse, ‘please can we have Tom Waits?’” His playlist includes the more expected, such as 18th century sea shanties. There’s also French singer Woodkid, and Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus.”
“It all helps,” Mison says. “Maybe one day, I’ll release it.”
On a break from shooting in oppressive humidity in Wilmington, N.C., Mison chats with us about his background and answers our “7 Questions.” Sleepy Hollow returns for Season 2, with 18 new episodes, beginning Monday, Sept. 22 at 9pm ET/PT on FOX.
1. You’re at a magazine rack and can only pick three titles. Which ones do you choose? A satirical news magazine called Private Eye in London. I subscribe. It is delivered to Wilmington. I would go for one full of food pornography — anything with a good pie on the front. Then one of the film magazines, and sneer at the other actors.
2. If your TV carried just three shows or networks, what would they be? Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and The Great British Bake Off.
3. What has been your strangest fan encounter? I am really disappointed I haven’t had anything weird happen. I am really annoyed, particularly being in a fantasy show. Everyone has been very civilized.
4. Tell us about a time when you were starstruck. I was shooting a TV show in Oxford. I was walking around Oxford and bumped into Thom Yorke of Radiohead. I am such a huge nerd that no words could come out of my mouth to apologize for bumping into him. I went into a coffee shop and saw someone from the costume department. He was devastated because he had just had his wallet stolen. And I was trying to be supportive, but I had just seen Thom Yorke.
5. What are three things you have to have in your fridge or pantry? I have just discovered – and it is rather boring, but could change the lives of your readership — how much you can do with coconut oil. I cook breakfast. You can cook up fries in coconut oil. Oil pulling — you swirl coconut oil for abut 20 minutes and it whitens teeth. And enough milk for plenty of tea because I am a terrible English stereotype. The third is I go through so many watermelons. Something I have discovered in the South is the beauty of watermelons.
6. What was your first time ever onstage? I must have been about 6 years old in school, and each class would come and sing a song and do terrible little dance numbers. My class did “Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat” from Cats. I was desperate to play Skimbleshanks. Instead, my best friend got it, and I was furious. About then I decided to be an actor, and said, ‘I will play Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat.” I am still yet to play Skimbleshanks.
7. What were your favorite stage roles? I was in a play called “Posh” about entitlement, loosely based on the Bullingdon Club, an Oxford University drinking society for only the very, very well-to-do students. The play was written in time for the last election. The mayor of London, they were all members. They would hire a room, get absolutely @#$%-faced and smash everything that can be smashed, and when the proprietor walks in, hand over a wad of cash and say, “Deal with it.” The play was written [with the message that] if you vote for him, this is the kind of thing you are getting. Every night people were leaving arguing with other members of the audience they did not arrive with. It sparked debate all the time. Police had to be called because a fight broke out. That was the pinnacle of my career — to be involved in a play that caused such debate that a fight broke out in a theater bar.
Photo Credit: David Johnson/FOX
