Tom Hiddleston Discusses his Character Loki in THOR
Another interview has surfaced from Comic-Con in which actor Tom Hiddleston, who plays Loki in Marvel's upcoming film Thor talks about his character, and how he will be portrayed in the film. We still know very little about what this character is going to end up like in the movie. I love the look that they gave him but how will he be portrayed by the actor? This interview gives us a little insight on what we can expect.
The interview was conducted by Movies Online, and here is part of the question and answer session that went down.
Did you have a wide range to have at it or were there specific parameters to your villainy?
Ken and I discussed a lot very early on because we both read a lot of the comics and there were so many facets of him in the comics. There was kind of an agent of chaos who would go down to earth and turn whales into sea serpents and plows into dragons and whole streets of cars in New York into ice cream. But then there was also this damaged brother, this younger brother who didn’t receive as much love as his elder brother and who was passed over, rejected, betrayed, and I think that became really interesting for both of us actually. Ken and I suddenly decided we wanted to root all of his mischief in a truthful, psychological damage. He essentially was the younger brother. He was never going to be king and he wished that he could, so all of his stuff comes from wanting to please his father, although there’s a big reveal about who his father really is in the course of the film which I won’t reveal. But it was rooted in that. I found the duality of that, the sort of he’s a villain, he has a lot of fun, he’s a mischievous prankster but at the same time he’s in deep, deep pain.
Kenneth seems to give his actors a lot of stuff to work with such as books and movies. What did he give you to play the villain? Where did you start?
Interestingly enough, he said to have a look at Peter O’Toole in two specific films: The Lion in Winter and Lawrence of Arabia. I mean, two magnificent performances. What’s interesting about The Lion in Winter is he plays King Henry and what’s beautiful about his performance is that you see how damaged he is. And there’s a rawness. It’s almost as if he’s living with a layer of skin peeled away. He’s grandiose and teary, and in a moment, by turns, hilarious and then terrifying. What we wanted was that kind of emotional volatility. He said, “Just have a look. Don’t necessarily…” It’s a different acting style. It’s not quite the same thing. What’s fascinating is to go back and watch an actor as great as O’Toole and head for those high hills. And then actually on set, we used to do different takes of different scenes and we’d have three different versions. The first one would always be like he’d say you can have one for free. The second take would be the Peter O’Toole take. The third take would be the Clint Eastwood take and the fourth take would be the Jack Nicholson. So it was like I had these three great actors who I was trying to pull stuff from.
Which one did you end up using more often?
He used to love the Clint actually. It was between the Clint and the Jack because the Clint would be like whatever you’re feeling, put it away in a drawer somewhere at the bottom of you and throw away the key. And Jack’s would be just like [imitating Nicholson’s voice and delivery] “Have a *really* good time!” There was that kind of relish, a deep sense of enjoyment like he was really enjoying himself.
It sounds like they nailed who this character Loki is, and I can't wait to see him brought to life on the big screen!
Thor is set to be released on May 6th 2011, and here's a little reminder of how will star in the film... Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, Idris Elba, Jaime Alexander, Kat Dennings, Stellan Skarsgard, Clark Gregg, Joshua Dallas, Tadanobu Asano, and Ray Stevenson.
What did you think about what Hiddelston had to say about the character?