Billy Crudup on How His Father’s ‘Flawed Sense of Psychology’ Inspired His ‘Hello Tomorrow!’ Character
variety.comAntonio Ferme editor For most of his career, Billy Crudup has kept his personal life behind closed doors. But “Hello Tomorrow!” — the new Apple TV+ series set in a retro-futuristic world — hits close to home for the actor.
Crudup stars as Jack Billings, who leads a duplicitous operation selling timeshares on the moon. The actor said his character reminds him of his late father, Thomas Henry Crudup III, who died in 2005.
At the series’ New York premiere on Wednesday night, Crudup spoke to Variety about how his father informed his performance. “I guess [co-creators] Amit Bhalla and Lucas Jansen touched on something that I found unique about my father and this country,” Crudup told Variety at the Whitby Hotel. “It was a wonderful way for me to remember my father and conjure him through — not just playing him — but telling the story of him to people.” Crudup has described his father as an incessant gambler and hustler salesman, but after reading the script for the new sci-fi drama, he said he was compelled to view his childhood upbringing in a different light. “[My father] just had a flawed sense of psychology,” Crudup revealed. “A lot of us do because that’s a very human feature, isn’t it?
We’re all fractured and flawed. We do the best we can to pretend like we’re normal, but sometimes that stuff comes out.” He continued, “My dad — he had a dad who told him all the time he was not good enough.
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