We all know the plaster casts of Pompeii, haunting human snapshots of people caught in their final moments during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
As the host of National Geographic’s “Pompeii: Out of Time,” Marvel Cinematic Universe star Tom Hiddleston had reservations about showing the famous casts, created by filling the hollow impressions left in the hardened volcanic ash that buried Pompeii’s victims nearly 2,000 years ago.
“I have always found these casts moving and arresting, because they’re as close as you get to a confrontation with death,” Hiddleston, 45, tells USA TODAY. “They are not just human shapes being caught in their last moments; they are human beings. I wanted to be respectful of the lives these people lived and tell their story, [initially] without showing them.”
Hiddleston’s three-part historical documentary series, premiering Wednesday, July 22, explores how advances in archaeology and forensic science are providing a deeper look at the people who lived and died in Pompeii − and even those who escaped the catastrophe.
Because the eruption occurred so long ago, Hiddleston says, “people get anesthetized” to the sight of the casts, most of which are on display at the Archaeological Park of Pompeii. They do appear onscreen in Episode 3, but only after the lives and final moments of three Romans – a teenage apprentice, a powerful businesswoman and a Praetorian Guard – are brought to life.
Throughout the documentary series, archaeologists, historians, geologists and disaster experts piece together the victims’ final minutes, as well as the lives they led, through the objects they left behind. That includes a stunning gold and jeweled necklace discovered on the remains of an adult woman presumed to be Julia Felix, excavated next to the Shrine of Isis at the prosperous businesswoman’s sprawling estate.
“This extraordinary necklace conjures up everything Julia Felix stood for and meant,” Hiddleston says. “From objects like these, you can build a life. And you can understand that these are people who really existed in that time.”
Hiddleston’s Pompeii fascination began with a 1998 Eurail trip
Hiddleston’s fascination with Pompeii and the nearby town of Herculaneum – about 15 miles northwest of Pompeii and also destroyed by the eruption – began at age 17 during a Eurail train trip across Europe with two friends in 1998.
“My first visit to Pompeii was when I realized that the study of the ancient world is a living, breathing thing,” he says. “To visit Pompeii is to feel these 2,000 years collapse. It’s almost as if you’re looking intimately into the past. It feels so close that you can almost touch it or taste it, like the volcano went off yesterday.”
In Herculaneum, carbonized loaves of bread still sit where they were left baking in ancient ovens when ever-looming Mount Vesuvius erupted.
“We have new systems and technologies, but the primary experience of being alive as a human being is pretty much the same life that we live now,” Hiddleston says. “That makes me feel less alone in the world knowing this.”
Hiddleston says the trip inspired him to pursue classics at the University of Cambridge, before the future “Loki” star went on to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to study acting. The travels also started his sensitivity to preserving the humanity of the people represented in the casts.
“I’ve always found it slightly uncomfortable about the way people have photographed them, as if they’re dishonoring their lives in a way. It’s almost like taking a photo of a painting or a statue. But they’re not statues. They’re people.”
Showing the casts at the end “actually frames it with honor and with respect,” he says.
“These people are more alive, so it’s like their gravestone or their epitaph. These are ordinary people living in an extraordinary time. Hopefully, you have a new level of empathy and curiosity for their stories.”
How to watch ‘Pompeii: Out of Time’
“Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston” premieres July 22 on NatGeo and will be available July 23 on Disney+ and Hulu. “Loki” executive producer Kevin R. Wright returned to helm the series with Hiddleston.
Stream now with Disney+
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Tom Hiddleston feared showing famed Pompeii body casts in new doc
Reporting by Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect