Hey kids, we had the pleasure of a chat with Tom Hiddleston, more commonly known to movie fans as Loki from Marvel Comic’s live-action hit, Thor. Tom talked to us about reprising the long-horned bad guy for next year’s hero-fest, The Avengers, and working with Steven Spielberg on War Horse, due out this Christmas.

Dig it!

Tom Hiddleston

The Lady Miz Diva:  What a year you’re having.

Tom Hiddleston:  Thank you, it’s all right. {Laughs}

LMD:  This is the second time you’re playing The God of Mischief under two very different directors.  What are the differences in your approach to playing Loki first under Kenneth Branagh and now under Joss Whedon?

TH:  Good question.  The thing about the two of them is that they actually share more than you might first imagine … weirdly.  Joss is a huge Shakespeare buff and Ken is a huge comic book fanboy.  True story!  But also, they both have a kind of pan-literacy about storytelling and mythology and literature and comics, and they understand classic tropes of storytelling, narrative arcs.  They’re also both just immensely passionate people; really good at leading, really good at inspiring actors and all of that stuff.  I guess that everyone has a different artistic fingerprint, and of course, whatever that fingerprint is changes as you grow older, anyway, and Ken has a very classical warmth about him, I think, and I think Thor is both warm and classical, in turn.  And Joss is really interested in comedy, as well, within a sci-fi context.  He had this huge canvas where eight superheroes are teaming up to save the world and he’s brave enough to make it funny.

LMD:  How did that affect your performance as Loki?  Did he change at all?

TH:  Well, he changes in that he’s definitively more menacing.  A lot more.  I think Loki in Thor is a lost prince and there’s a degree of vulnerability and confusion about his identity.  In The Avengers, he knows exactly who he is.  He’s fully self-possessed and he he’s here with a particular mission.

LMD:  I’m sure you’ve been asked this a million times since the first film, but how immersed in Marvel mythology were you before playing Loki?

TH:  Well, in England we had this crazy game called Top Trumps.  It’s a really simple game for kids and you have them for racing cars, or fighter planes, or something and I had the Marvel Superhero Top Trumps.  And each superhero is on each card with all of their vital statistics and we’d split the deck and then you’d have Thor, or whatever, and I’d have Loki, and you’d say “Height, seven-foot-two,” and I’d be like, “Ahh, seven foot,” and you’d win Loki from me.  And so my acquaintance with Marvel superheroes came from the game.

LMD:  Did you have a favourite?

TH:  Galactus!  Yeah, he’s the Top Trump in the supervillains.

LMD:  You come from a theatrical background where you instantly know what the audience is feeling.  Is the volatile instant reaction you get at comic conventions anything similar to that and which is more daunting?

TH:  I don’t know, you just have to hope that they’re happy all the time.  Of course, when you in a theatre and you go out on stage, one goes out in character; one is performing a very tightly rehearsed spectacle.  So, it’s a completely different beast in a way.  I do love performing on stage.  I love the palpable reaction that you can feel from a live audience because everyone’s in the same room, you know?  Comic con’s different because people are there because they love the material, they love the characters, they’re not there to see a story.  I just feel like I’m along for the ride.  I feel lucky to have people who are interested in what I’m doing.

LMD:  Since we were talking about directors earlier, I wonder if you can tell us about working with Mr. Spielberg on War Horse?

TH:  Sure!  Well, he’s a genius.  I mean, that’s nothing new.  To be honest, he’s one of the kindest, most generous men I’ve ever met and I think War Horse is gonna be breathtaking.  I play Captain Nichols, and the film is the story of one horse as we track it through the entire course of the First World War, from 1914 to 1918, and really the horse is the still, silent, all-seeing eye for us, the audience.  And really, through the eyes of the horse, we come into contact with the breadth of humanity and the breadth of essentially the waste and indifference towards human life.  And so, the horse, over the course of the film, comes into contact with different people; with young Devon farmboys, with the British cavalry, with German officers, with a French family, and I’m in that sort of second bracket.  I play the English officer that buys the horse from his Devon farm and takes him to war.

LMD:  And finally, we can’t tell from the trailer, but is there a fabulous hat for Loki in The Avengers?

TH:  There is!

~ The Lady Miz Diva

Oct. 14^th, 2011

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