“Tom Blyth is trying to come to terms with the fact that it’s OK to take a break. “I forget sometimes,” the 30-year-old admits to The Hollywood Reporter on a mid-December Zoom from London. “I need people around me to tell me it’s OK [to take time] off.” The British actor, starring in Netflix’s latest romantic”, — write: www.hollywoodreporter.com
“I forget sometimes,” the 30-year-old admits to The Hollywood Reporter on a mid-December Zoom from London. “I need people around me to tell me it’s OK [to take time] off.”
The British actor, starring in Netflix’s latest romantic comedy People We Meet On Vacationis coming off a downright hectic year. Blyth starred in three projects that released in 2025 — Plainclothes, The Fence and Wasteman. He also kicked off promotions on the Netflix film, an adaptation of contemporary romance author Emily Henry’s popular novel of the same name, playing Alex Nilsen, the straight man to his co-star Emily Bader’s zany Poppy Wright.
Given the year he’s had, Blyth says he’s trying to learn how to balance the necessary and creative. “So much of doing this [job] is the technical and the business side of it, but so much of it is the creative, which is just being a human,” he says.
“There are things that are like structural, technical things like capitalism that we all take part in, and business and work that don’t fill up the cup, but they’re necessary. You can’t really do one without the other, especially in this industry,” Blyth continues. “You can’t make a film and then not promote it. You can’t do the creative thing and then not put it out there because no one will see it. If nobody sees it, it’s just like a selfish act.”
Below, Blyth digs into why he took People We Meet On Vacationworking on beloved IP films, worrying about being put into a box and why he thinks rom-coms are difficult to shoot.
You’ve been promoting several projects in 2025. As you’re coming to the end of the year, how are you feeling looking back on that?
It’s funny. I feel like I spent a year or two making a bunch of stuff, especially last year, back-to-back, and then, it all came out at the same time. Or at least [the films] did the festival circuit at the same time. I’ve been juggling talking about four different films and have some more coming out in the new year as well.
I’d like to say it’s been reflective, but I haven’t really had the time to reflect on them. I’ve just kind of been just going with the flow. But now that we’re into the holiday period and things are slowing down, I’m reflecting a bit more and feel very grateful. I think I’ve gotten to do what I love for the past few years and people still like it.
When you’re looking for projects, what’s the common factor? I assume there’s something that draws you in. You’re a working actor, so sometimes you are just taking a project because you want to take a project. But what makes a film worthwhile for you?
It’s so true. I was speaking to my agent today and I was like, “I don’t have anything for January. Should I have something for January?” She was like, “Dude, it’s okay to not be working constantly.” I’ve always known that because my favorite actors take a long time to prepare and a long time in between jobs. [They] do each role slowly and fully, but it’s also not the world we live in anymore. Everything is fast. Projects come together at the last minute; get greenlit and financed at the very last second and come together within a month. I think that goes hand in hand with the world we live in outside of this industry. I think that is the lesson of the past two years. I’m in a fortunate place now where I can maybe slow down a little bit and choose jobs a little more with a little bit more discretion.
I think I’m not even answering your question. Your question was, how do I choose a job.
That’s part of it.
It’s part of the thought process. I think [I’m] doing roles that are varied and not doing the same thing twice. Going from Lucas in Plainclothes to Dee in Wasteman and having these hard shifts in different people you get to try and empathize with and inhabit is exciting.
I enjoy the feeling of surprising myself and hopefully surprising other people. Then [it’s] sometimes just going, “I’m knackered from playing these heavy roles, and I need to do something light and fun, so I’m going to do this Netflix rom-com that hopefully lots of people will see and have joy in January.”
I think fans of the book People We Meet On Vacation are really going to enjoy it. You previously talked to my colleague about how surprised you were by the difficulty of doing rom-coms. The surface level opinion is that it’s an easy gig to take, so I’m really curious to hear your thoughts on why.
As a viewer, I thought it was the easy gig for a long time. Then, I did one. It might just have felt hard at the beginning because it wasn’t in my muscle memory. When I trained in theater school and did comedies there, I loved doing them. They’re fun and buoyant. You feel light on your feet, and you get to keep the audience surprised and play the laughs. But I think my muscle memory was a few years of serious drama under my skin. I realized you can’t get stuck doing one thing for too long if you want to be an actor who gets to do it all, which some people don’t. Some people are happy to play one kind of thing and then enjoy it, and they thrive at it. I’m kind of jealous of those people, but I think I’m not built that way.
I’m constantly curious about challenging myself in an area that I haven’t done recently or a character that I haven’t played yet. I think taking on a rom-com was definitely the ultimate version of that. I was playing the straight man as well. Emily Bader gets to do the off-the-wall, fun, bombastic playing for laughs, and I have to ground the thing and play straight down the barrel, which is its own challenge. But ultimately, style is the challenge. You always have to try and work out what the style of the thing is that you’re doing and play into it, but still be authentic and true.
There’s a huge fan base of book readers, specifically in the romance genre. Did that give you pause? I’ve seen some of the comments you made after The Hunger Gamesand you said a few times that you learned not to listen to buzz.
It definitely always gives me pause before I do the job. Even going into The Hunger Gameswhich is and will remain one of the best experiences of my life. I loved making it. I loved watching it. I loved the fans. It’s such an incredible world that Suzanne Collins has built and that Francis Lawrence continues to expand on in the films. I was so lucky to be a part of it, and it’s opened so many doors for me now.
It’s funny because as a working actor, you fight for the role, you get offered it, and then you actually have to do it. I remember realizing I’d gotten it and then going, “Wait, do I actually definitely want to do this?” [I] fought for it because it’s in my nature to fight for doing what I love and getting to work no matter what it is. You realize this will be my life. I will be attached to this forever. I took a pause, but I did it and didn’t regret it in the least.
What about with People We Meet On Vacation?
The same thing happened, where I thought this is different to the stuff I’ve been doing. Will people think I’m the rom-com guy now? Will I get pigeonholed? You always go through those motions. But I think it always comes down to what the intentions are here. And the intentions [here] were to make a really good piece of work in that genre, and it’s a genre that I love. Everybody loves putting on those Nora Efron classics, and the filmmakers here were striving to make something that was a modern answer to those that was in discussion with When Harry Met Sally and those greats. I think they managed to do that, and I’m really proud of it.
There’s no shame in making a big, beautiful film that makes people laugh and cry and feel all the feelings that lots of people will see. I think that’s as useful and as important as making a Plainclotheswhich is like an arthouse gem that not as many people will likely see, but will be moved by. I think as long as you’re doing both, you can’t go wrong.
You touched on this a few times just now. When you take on a role, especially in a blockbuster, you might be put into a box. Is that something you often think about as an actor? Are you afraid to be put into a box? Is that why you try to do so many different things?
You can’t help but think about it. That’s inevitable, and I think even the most gritty, feet on the ground, crunchy artist thinks about it, even if they say they don’t. Especially in the world we live in where we’re constantly having the word branding shoved in our faces, constantly having brands shoved in our faces. You can’t help but consume it even if you’re a recluse. It’s fucking everywhere. It’s exhausting. I think because of that, as an actor or as any kind of artist, you’re aware of the story that might be told about your work and how that might affect you down the line when you’re trying to get other work and do other things. Whether people will let you do that because you’re the guy who did the rom-com or the guy who did the big blockbuster. But at the end of the day, the only person who can actually shape that is you.
I always come back to this — even if people momentarily think I’m that thing, all it will take is for me to pick up a camera and 5,000 pounds of my own money and go and make a short film in the woods that is something I want to do and show it to people and [tell them] this what I want to do. Maybe that’s idealistic, but I think if you fully believe in the thing that you’re trying to do, where there’s a will, there’s a way. People tend to rally around that clarity of vision. Also, there’s value in keeping people guessing. Then, they can’t pin you down because you’re not pinning yourself down either.
When you’ve had the year you do, how do you take care of yourself? I imagine there’s a sense of being physically drained, but creatively drained as well. Because now you’re not making the art, you’re spending the year telling people to see the art.
I don’t know that I self-care. I think it’s just something you have to do — taking care of yourself. Everything these days becomes buzzwords and becomes a topic or a header, but there’s just things you have to do as a human being. I really love work, and I love hard work and always have. Even when it’s not acting. When I was a bartender, I loved being a bartender. I like being of use. I think humans inherently like being of use, but you also get burned out. If you’re working really hard on the thing that you love. I’m lucky to be at a place at 30 years old where I get to be of use doing a thing that I love most.
I also think change is self-care as well. Sometimes, just having a change of scenery and working on something different is rejuvenating and refueling. Having come off several months of doing press for different films, I’m actually eager just to sit and write a play that I’ve been ruminating on for ages. In the little downtime that I have, I’m going to sit and put pen to paper. That in its own way, even though I’m not committed to my pillow, I think I’ll be sitting at a desk and still feeling rested by using myself in a different way.
Do you feel that spending the time you have free to creatively fill yourself helps your acting performances?
Trying to find that balance between doing the necessary business-y, just pedal to the metal kind of work stuff and then going back and filling up your cup so you can do it all over again is vital. Having other creative avenues is how you fill up your cup. S sometimes that looks like different things. It could be going and writing something, or it could be just going to a gig and listening to your favorite band play and feeling inspired by that. Then bringing that kind of sense of play to your work, even if it’s not something you did yourself.
What’re you looking to do next?
You found me in a moment where I’m desperate to do theater. I started by doing plays when I was younger and went to drama school to do plays. I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to do film and TV at a relatively high level since I kind of became a professional actor, but I’m dying to do a play again.