{"id":904120,"date":"2026-09-24T20:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T20:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/904120\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T20:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T20:08:11","slug":"tom-hiddleston-on-larger-than-life-early-marvel-days-with-thor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/904120\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Hiddleston on ‘Larger Than Life’ Early Marvel Days With ‘Thor’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBritish actor Tom Hiddleston<\/a> has a privileged view and understanding of the Marvel Cinematic Universe phenomenon, having starred as Loki in \u201cThor,\u201d only the second film of a now ever-expanding franchise. Speaking at the Zurich Film Festival<\/a>, where he is presenting the opening film \u201cTenzing<\/a>\u201d and receiving a Golden Eye Award, the actor recalled those early Marvel days as \u201clarger than life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHiddleston said transitioning from working with British auteur Joanna Hogg on \u201cUnrelated\u201d and \u201cArchipelago\u201d was not so much of a shock, as both Hogg\u2019s work and his role as Loki were about dealing with family issues, in a way. \u201cThe difference [with Marvel] was in the scale of the resources, the size of the crews, the size of the sets. It was so larger than life.\u201d The actor would go on to play the famed character in seven movies and two seasons of \u201cLoki.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHis memories of those early days are largely about \u201ca very vivid, happy, immediate, fast friendship with Chris Hemsworth that had both of us feeling like we were the two luckiest guys in the world.\u201d The actor said they were both very aware of being given \u201cthis extraordinary opportunity to play these magnificent characters and bring them to life for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe were immediately bonded,\u201d he added. \u201cIt was a shared excitement about being invited to make a film like this. Marvel Studios had made one film at that time, which was \u2018Iron Man,\u2019 which we both loved, and we were being directed by Kenneth Branagh, Anthony Hopkins was playing our father, Rene Russo was playing our mother, and we had extraordinary resources. We had an amazing, brilliant creative stunt department where we would train for sequences of dizzying choreography. We both loved movement and these opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOf the project\u2019s scale, Hiddleston said, \u201cIt was a different dimension.\u201d \u201cThe scenes themselves were very deep. They were full of turbulence, turmoil, soul and emotion [\u2026] The material was really deep, so the combination of those things was a thrill.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Brit thanked late screenwriter Don Payne for developing Loki\u2019s \u201ccomplex\u201d backstory, and recalled an early conversation with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who told him \u201cThor\u201d wasn\u2019t \u201cthe only film you\u2019re going to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe said: \u2018Well, we\u2019ve made an \u2018Iron Man\u2019 film, we\u2019re going to make a \u2018Thor\u2019 film, we\u2019re going to make a \u2018Captain America\u2019 film, and then we\u2019re going to make an \u2018Avengers\u2019 film, which is Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, the Hulk and Hawkeye forming a team. In the first edition of the first \u2018Avengers\u2019 comic, from 1967, the villain is Loki, and we want you to be the villain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI never expected to be playing the character for this long,\u201d he added. \u201cBut he\u2019s a brilliant character of such depth and dimension [\u2026] \u201cI knew where we had started in \u2018Thor,\u2019 and I wanted to get back to his capacity for love and his belonging to his family. I wanted to somehow find a way of completing that arc. It\u2019s a long journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHiddleston kept his lips sealed about the highly anticipated \u201cAvengers: Doomsday,\u201d saying only that \u201cit is coming.\u201d And it is indeed, with the premiere date set for Dec. 18.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple Original Films<\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201cCrimson Peak\u201d actor also spoke at length about Jennifer Peedom\u2019s \u201cTenzing,\u201d which chronicles the tale of the first-ever ascent of Mount Everest. The Brit plays climber Edmund Hillary, with Genden Phuntsok playing the titular Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. Willem Dafoe, Caitr\u00edona Balfe and Tenzin Jigmey are also in the cast of the Apple TV film.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been compelled by Everest for as long as I can remember,\u201d he said, noting how he learned how to ski in the Swiss and French Alps, but has always been drawn by the highest of mountains. \u201cWhat moved me so much about, um, about Jen\u2019s screenplay and the premise and the promise of her film, which she sent to me three years ago with a beautiful letter, was that it was to put Tenzing Norgay at the center of his own story, to reframe that narrative from a different perspective and bring him into the foreground.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHiddleston praised Peedom\u2019s 2015 documentary \u201cSherpa,\u201d which portrayed in depth the Sherpa culture near Everest and the exploitation of local climbers by wealthy Westerners chasing the dream of summiting the mighty mountain. After reading the script, watching the documentary, and meeting Peedom, Hiddleston signed up for the project, which led him to climb to Everest\u2019s base camp alongside the director, Phuntsok, and a high-altitude medical specialist. That experience connected him with the physicality of the role, but also its spirituality.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI love that this film really reveals the deeply spiritual relationship that Tenzing had with the mountain, not a mountain to be conquered, but a goddess to be revered, a mother into whose lap he might climb,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think Hillary was really open to that depth of feeling,\u201d he went on. \u201cThey did this extraordinary thing. Amazing. They achieved the impossible, like stepping on the moon. After that, their lives were changed forever; summiting Everest became possible, and thousands and thousands of people have done it since.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Zurich Film Festival runs Sept. 24 \u2013 Oct. 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British actor Tom Hiddleston has a privileged view and understanding of the Marvel Cinematic Universe phenomenon, having starred…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":904121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344,463814,156075,60991],"class_list":["post-904120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-tenzing","tag-tom-hiddleston","tag-zurich-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/904121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}