When it comes to the original script (which I might have still on the external hard drive, from prior to a site that had it going offline) it was originally written with Thomas as a cold, calculating monster before everything was changed. Benedict Cumberbatch was to play him, but had to back out due to other film commitments. Upon meeting Hiddleston, Del Toro rewrote things to play better to him.
One or two elements of those biographies that he privately provided the actors are sprinkled in the novel. For instance, the manner in which their father died. Otherwise, I don’t know if anything was ever really revealed to anyone else.
I’m going to check, but I might have the pdf of the novelization, too, still, if you like. I gathered everything for a Yuletide 2015 story, and kept it handy.
A couple more questions: if Carter Cushing is successful enough not to have done any manual labour for years (he's now a self-made businessman taking investment decisions rather than a common steel worker), how can his hands still be rough?
A spell of a few months in hospital is normally enough to soften the horniest palms into vulnerability, never mind years of comfortable wealth -- has Cushing been moonlighting from the office on his construction sites for old times' sake? ;-)
A question I never thought of, actually! He’s definitely doing something on the side, in some manner for Edith’s benefit. But yes, there’s bound to be more than a single callous on Thomas’ hands, with the equipment he uses.
I always felt that Lady Sharpe must have been buried on the surrounding grounds. There’s clay everywhere in the area, so it’s not just in the vats, it's the soil itself. No matter where you go on the grounds, it’s there. If there is some graveyard near them, it's bound to taint things—as you see with it seeping through the snow around them.
I can say the ending could have been worse, since it was originally meant to include all the people that Lucille killed coming back as ghosts and dragging her away. Her at the piano is a nice callback to the only place she felt at ease, in a way.
Oh, and did you ever see the deleted scenes? One of them is Lucille. She sits at the piano, slowly going mad while Edith and Thomas are at the post office. Playing one note over and over again, as she stares upward at her mother's portrait.
Edited to add: And over the scene, you hear Thomas reading Edith's book. "A house as old as this one becomes, in time, a living thing." It continues on a bit from there. It's the passage you hear in the trailers, but never in the film itself.
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One or two elements of those biographies that he privately provided the actors are sprinkled in the novel. For instance, the manner in which their father died. Otherwise, I don’t know if anything was ever really revealed to anyone else.
I’m going to check, but I might have the pdf of the novelization, too, still, if you like. I gathered everything for a Yuletide 2015 story, and kept it handy.
A couple more questions: if Carter Cushing is successful enough not to have done any manual labour for years (he's now a self-made businessman taking investment decisions rather than a common steel worker), how can his hands still be rough?
A spell of a few months in hospital is normally enough to soften the horniest palms into vulnerability, never mind years of comfortable wealth -- has Cushing been moonlighting from the office on his construction sites for old times' sake? ;-)
A question I never thought of, actually! He’s definitely doing something on the side, in some manner for Edith’s benefit. But yes, there’s bound to be more than a single callous on Thomas’ hands, with the equipment he uses.
I always felt that Lady Sharpe must have been buried on the surrounding grounds. There’s clay everywhere in the area, so it’s not just in the vats, it's the soil itself. No matter where you go on the grounds, it’s there. If there is some graveyard near them, it's bound to taint things—as you see with it seeping through the snow around them.
I can say the ending could have been worse, since it was originally meant to include all the people that Lucille killed coming back as ghosts and dragging her away. Her at the piano is a nice callback to the only place she felt at ease, in a way.
Oh, and did you ever see the deleted scenes? One of them is Lucille. She sits at the piano, slowly going mad while Edith and Thomas are at the post office. Playing one note over and over again, as she stares upward at her mother's portrait.
Edited to add: And over the scene, you hear Thomas reading Edith's book. "A house as old as this one becomes, in time, a living thing." It continues on a bit from there. It's the passage you hear in the trailers, but never in the film itself.