Breguet
Aldis Hodge: Great Expectations
“I’ve always been an artist, but I wanted to be an architect, and for me watchmaking was architecture in its tiniest form,” he explains. “I started learning how to design by studying brands for certain specificity, and Breguet was one of the first brands I started studying because of what Abraham-Louis Breguet contributed, in terms of the tourbillon and the resounding effect that he had, which still plays out today in terms of efficacy and significance.”
It’s knowledge that has certainly served him well in many respects of his life — and Hodge continues to be a student, following his mother’s adage: “They can take everything in the world from you except for what you know.”
He’s quick to say that there’s nothing wrong in aspiring to be either, and explains that his issue wasn’t what society expected him to be, but rather that it was all it expected out of him: “It really perturbed me that most people did not openly or widely associate intelligence with my black skin. Part of my interest to become an engineer was purely scientific interest, but it was also rebellious of sorts, a way for me to say, ‘I’ll show you guys.’”
It explains the roles he’s taken, from playing Noah, a driven and perceptive slave looking for freedom in Antebellum, Georgia, in Underground, to Levi Jackson opposite Janelle Monáe’s Mary Jackson in Hidden Figures, a civil rights activist navigating how to best support his wife’s efforts to become an engineer in the ’60s. “As an actor, I selfishly would like to fill my resume with roles that have some meaning and some depth that reach beyond my personal benefit,” he explains. “That really zoned in for me when we were on the promo tour [for Hidden Figures], and you would see these rooms filled with little girls, watching the movie, talking about how they always wanted to be an astronaut or an engineer, and realizing they can do it now because they see it.”
And, clearly, subverting people’s expectations of him has only worked to Hodge’s benefit. His unique approaches to his work spring from his ability to empathize wholeheartedly with others: “Acting allows me to engage different personalities and understand the root of someone’s intentions, because as an actor the job is to build on these characters and focus on really defining their intent. Why do people do what they do and what motivates them? And in terms of horology and design, I feel like as a designer, our primary responsibility as makers is to set the tone for new experiences for people. How are you going to engage this product that you think you’re familiar with in a very new way? And how can I give you something that is familiar enough that you instantly connect and that it immediately resonates with you?”
As we get up from our seats, the conversation circles back to the Tradition 7097 he’s wearing and before I know it, Hodge is going from display to display in the Breguet boutique, peppering the boutique’s manager with insightful questions and studying each model closely. And he’s right: he doesn’t necessarily look like the consummate watch guy. But his poise combined with his eagerness to learn echoes that of the most studious watchmaker seated in his workbench in Switzerland’s La Chaux-de-Fonds. With such a sincere enthusiasm for his crafts, there’s no doubt that there is only more to come from this former Trenton kid who once drew on his mother’s white walls.