My Interview with Tom Hiddleston AKA “Loki” from AVENGERS

By Leslie Pleasants

I remember sitting there in a daze…. the wait for him to arrive in the room. What was Tom Hiddleston going to be like? Was my hair ok? Trying to breathe and not think about it anymore then I noticed I missed some shaving spots on my legs. Great I thought. He is going to notice. So then I started getting nervous again. Whipped out my purse to check my lips and other areas on my face and then I heard the door open….

He just walked right in with a big smile on his face… like no big deal. Of course not. He does this all the time. He is tall, like 6’2″. Wearing a dark colored suit and very handsome. But the best is his voice. He has a british accent and it is to die for. The way he talks is very soft spoken and looks you in the eyes with this british accent it was kind of hard to focus on what he was saying.

Here is my interview with Mr. Tom Hiddleston

Q: So is Loki really a villain or is he just jealous of his big brother?

TOM HIDDLESTON: I always think of him as an antagonist as opposed to a villain, but only because every villain is a hero in his own mind and all of us in the world, we, as we move forward with our lives, we make choices, and we like to think that they’re the right choices.

Q: What were your reactions when you read the script and you realized that you had such a big role in this movie?

TOM HIDDLESTON: I did the happy dance.

Q: You did?

TOM HIDDLESTON: I really, really did. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. It was very top secret. I had — I had — it came in paper form. And most scripts come in electronic form now. And they’re all watermarked. So if it ever leaves it has your name on it, but it was only in paper form, hand delivered.
And Joss told me — Joss Whedon told me I was going to be the only villain, but I really couldn’t believe that I got the part, and the quality of his writing.

Q: So, tell us how much you like playing such an evil bad guy.

TOM HIDDLESTON: Well, because I played him before, I kind of feel like I’ve got both my arms around him. I understand underneath all of his like, evil and anger and madness and mania, there’s a sort of emotional heartbreak. But it was really fun to cut loose and just let my hair down, literally and metaphorically.

Q: So, what would you say that Loki’s chasing in his efforts?

TOM HIDDLESTON: He’s chasing power. But the reason he’s chasing power is because, really, he’s chasing self-esteem. I think anyone who feels powerful has no need to reach for it, and those in the world who feel they aren’t powerful, they seem to have no self-love, no self-esteem, are constantly trying to get the power.

Q: I was going to ask, because I watched Thor again, do you think your character was miss-understood?

TOM HIDDLESTON: In that film, he is. In Avengers, he has taken that miss-understanding and swallowed it whole. In “Thor” he’s somebody who is in the moment, alongside the audience. He’s discovering the, “why” of his life’s story. He’s discovered that the narrative that he’s been told, of his personal history is a lie. And so what happens is that his heart is broken, and that heart breaks kind of hard, and turns into something very angry and vengeful, unfortunately. But I found that really beautiful, and that all came from, Kenneth Branagh, actually. He found it fascinating to find the quality in Loki that was redeemable. He wanted to have the audience believe until the last possible moment that Loki could be recruited to the good side.

Q: Where did you get most of the research from?

TOM HIDDLESTON: Most of my stuff. It’s funny because I trained as a theater actor in London, so I don’t mean to sound pretentious, but Shakespeare is always a really easy paragon for me, because he wrote such amazing characters. So I studied more, he’s more like Iago now and less like Edmond in “King Lear.” Iago is a total psychopath and, you know, in the play he basically brings down an entire culture, And you don’t ever find out really why. At the end, someone asks him, “Why did you do this?” And he politely responds with, “What you know, you know.”

………………………..

I did ask him about his favorite movie HEAT… which is one of my favorite movies too. I would include that in here too but that would be pages long as he went in depth into it. I never did get to get to the point of why I brought up the movie Heat but it was fun seeing him so excited about talking about it.

In the end it was so much fun to chat with him. He is so down to earth and someone who you could just be friends with type of guy. I was so honored to have that chance to be a part of this experience and will cherish it forever!