From theatre to Thor

With Thor, Tom Hiddleston has shot from indie star to Hollywood. Next stop, Spielberg Tom Hiddleston turns up for breakfast at a central London hotel dead on time and breathlessly thrilled. Though the 30-year-old has already had an impressive career, renowned as one of the most penetratingly intelligent actors of his generation and working with directors as illustrious as Michael Grandage and Terence Davies , travelling here on the tube he had a Hollywood moment. He saw a poster of Thor for the first time. He sits forward eagerly. “It’s a wildly exciting time. I’ve never been in a film that has posters on the tube. And it’s not even my face on the poster.” The Thor poster shows a close-up of Chris Hemsworth as the god of thunder; Hiddleston plays his Machiavellian brother Loki, the god of mischief. On screen, the two actors are brawn and brain, large and little. Hemsworth’s Thor is a brash yet increasingly likable god; Hiddleston’s Loki is ultimately just a kid who wants to please his dad, Odin, played by Anthony Hopkins . It’s surprising, then, to learn that director Kenneth Branagh initially asked Hiddleston to audition for the title role. Hiddleston digs into his eggs benedict and laughs. “Ken found out he’d got the job in late 2008, when we were appearing at the Donmar together, knocking eight bells of ideological crap out of each other every night in Chekhov’s Ivanov . Dressed as the self-righteous 19th-century doctor Lvov, with wire-rimmed spectacles, a pocket watch, grey trousers, a linen jacket and a goatee, I ran up to Ken’s dressing room holding a massive empty water cooler that I pretended was Thor’s hammer. He looked at me and said, ‘Don’t joke, love, you never

Posted by on April 24, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.