-My first guest is an Emmy-and Tony-nominated actor
who stars in the Disney+ series "Loki,"
which has its season finale this Wednesday.
Here is Tom Hiddleston!
Yeah! That's what I'm talking about!
Yes! That's what I'm talking about!
[ Cheers and applause ]
Come on, now. That's a stud. Look at that.
Come on, buddy. Nice to see you. They love you.
Oh, my God. Tom --
-Hi, Jimmy.
-Tom, we have a full audience, finally.
And so that's why they were going crazy.
[ Cheers and applause ]
We love you, bud.
Thank you for coming on our show.
We appreciate it, buddy.
Where are you right now?
-I'm in London. -Okay.
Oh, thank you for doing this.
It must be either late or early. So thank you.
-You know, it's fine, It's like 10:00.
10:00 is fine.
-10:00 is fine. Yeah. Absolutely good.
I'm happy you're here. Last time you were on the show,
we actually were --
We announced, I think, that you were going to
bring "Loki" -- to do "Loki" again.
Before that, you thought that it was the end.
You've done -- Your "Loki" days were over.
-I did -- Well, first of all,
I remember exactly coming onto a show
and you being, I think, pretty much the first person
to announce that it was happening, and you were so kind.
And I appreciate it.
[ Cheers and applause ]
But, yes, I --
[ Applause ]
I really did think it was the end.
I mean, I thought it was the end a couple of times, to be honest.
There was once after "Thor: The Dark World"
and then after "Avengers: Infinity War,"
which you'll remember the opening few minutes of that film
felt pretty conclusive.
Um...
-That's a great way to put it. Yeah. I would say so.
-It's kind of hard to come back from that.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You'd think so.
-Big purple guy with the big glove and, you know --
Anyway, they -- There was a big round of applause on set
and lots of lovely notes from the studio saying,
you know, "We love you, Tom, and come and see us any time.
You'll always be part of the family."
And I hung up my boots and said goodbye.
-It was a proper goodbye.
-Yeah. -And then couple years later --
-Yeah. That's the thing about Loki,
is he just -- What do they say about Loki?
He's like, "I'm Loki, and when I die, I don't."
-For anyone who hasn't seen --
There's five episodes out, correct right now?
For anyone who hasn't seen this,
can you explain the premise of "Loki"?
-Yes. Okay. Great idea. Very briefly.
-I'm gonna leave the heavy lifting to you, yeah.
-[ Laughs ] Okay.
So, in "Avengers: Endgame," you'll remember
the Avengers from 2019 go back in time to 2012.
And there's a whole situation with two Tony Starks.
Antman is there.
And they make The Hulk take the stairs.
And he burst through a hallway and bumps into 2019 Tony.
And the suitcase with the Tesseract goes flying.
-Yes. That's it. Yes.
-And he picks up the Tesseract,
and he disappears in a puff of smoke.
And where he goes next is where we start.
And he sort of improvises for a bit.
And then he's apprehended by this organization
called the TVA, which is an organization
that claims to govern the order of time.
But maybe the most important information you need to know
is that Owen Wilson is an analyst for the TVA.
-That's correct. You guys are fantastic together.
Owen Wil-- You guys are great together.
-Thank you. -Did you --
Have you worked together before?
-Yes, we worked together in "Midnight in Paris," yeah,
but this is the first, like,
really extensive -- Really extensive.
We did like -- We made this show across the pandemic
and got to know each other very well.
And he is just great.
It was one of those things that was meant to be.
So, he plays Mobius, and Mobius is somebody
who is, like, an academic and he's an expert in Loki
and he knows more about Loki than Loki.
And we have these really amazing long scenes together
where Mobius confronts Loki with his true self
and almost sees him without judgment and with compassion.
It's kind of confronting for Loki
because he's normally used to everybody
being kind of emotionally involved.
Like, Thor was like -- gets enraged by Loki.
And Odin gets enraged by Loki.
And Mobius is like...
-Exactly right. Yeah.
-But it was cool. It was like, you know --
It was like a big -- It was like a game of tennis every time
because we had these long scenes together,
and we used to talk about, you know,
put a different sort of spin on the ball.
And in the end, we talked about it so much
we had to actually play some tennis.
-Did you actually play tennis?
-Yeah. Yeah. -Can Owen play?
-Uh, he certainly can.
And I don't know. I somehow thought, like --
Maybe I just knew he'd be an athlete.
But I didn't quite expect the level of control on the ball.
If this is an exclusive, Owen Wilson is --
I lost, is what I'm trying to say.
-Okay. Yeah, yeah.
It doesn't really -- It doesn't matter.
You guys are fantastic on the screen together.
And Disney+ never fools around.
They always -- You get above and beyond
with every script and everything they do.
I will say the effects are amazing.
These are movies that are on your -- your streaming.
-This is -- We met a bunch of new Lokis this last week,
and one was Alligator Loki.
This is Alligator Loki.
[ Cheers and applause ]
But then we got the exclusive.
This is what you were acting with on set.
This is the Alligator Loki that we were using.
-[ Laughs ] Yes.
-Is it hard to work with that?
-I mean, look at him.
A huge star. He's not even getting up out of his chair.
[ Laughter ]
You know, he's like, "Yep, I'm here," you know,
"When do you need me?
Are you ready for my close-up yet?
-Yeah. "Hurry up." Yeah, "We're losing light,"
stuff like that. -It actually was funny,
because, obviously, he's made out of
sort of these three discarded cushions
sewn up with some eyes on.
And we would -- I would --
I mean, I have to -- Like, no offense
to Alligator Loki, clearly the superior Loki,
but I would sometimes -- You'd be doing a scene,
and you'd think, "Okay,
so, we're going to get the wide shot
and then the two shot, and we'll do Owen's coverage,
and get everyone's close-ups and coverage."
And you think, "Okay, I think that was --
That felt like a great scene. I think we're done.
I think we -- Are we moving on?"
And we'd all sort of wrap --
"Ah, guys, that was a great scene.
It was a great scene. See you tomorrow."
And somebody would say, "Hang on a second.
We have to shoot --
We have to shoot the, uh -- the alligator."
[ Laughter ]
-Forget he was there. We shot -- "Sorry, yeah."
I put my microphone back on.
-"The alligator wants one more take.
Okay, no problem."
-"You know, uh, yeah, sun's going down."
-There's other Loki news I want to quickly discuss.
One is, we're big fan of "The Simpsons" here on our show.
And they did a short film
of "The Simpsons"-"Loki" crossover
that is fascinating that you can see on Disney+.
It's streaming right now.
It's called "The Good, the Bart, and the Loki."
[ Cheers and applause ]
And it is --
-Right there.
-How is it working with those guys?
They're brilliant, right? They know what they're doing.
-I have to tell you, Jimmy I mean, honestly, like,
I grew up on that show.
I mean, if I could go back in time and --
-Yeah, you can!
You can!
You're Loki!
You can go back in time! -I can just go back.
-Yes! Do this! You must go back and tell yourself
what you're doing now.
[ Laughter, applause ]
-Well, you know, 10-year-old Tom would be doing back flips
that he is in a scene with Homer Simpson.
-Yeah. -I mean, look. He's like --
I can't believe it when I watch it
that I'm in a scene with Homer. And Bart. And Lisa.
-Yeah. It's wild.
-But it's great. It's such an honor.
I mean, they are -- they are geniuses,
and it's really, really fun. -There's also a thing called
"What If...?" which is coming out
for any Marvel fans out there. -Yeah. Yeah.
-And basically, it is -- it's animated,
but basically is that.
What if "blank" happened?
What if these people were never --
they never fought? These people were friends?
What if -- -That's right. Yeah.
So, I think it was based on a run of comics
that actually were released or published.
And it's like, what if, you know, Loki wasn't adopted?
What if Peggy Carter was the one who got the serum?
What if the Ravagers kidnapped T'Challa
instead of Peter Quill?
It's kind of, what if some major event in history
had actually gone the other way,
and what reality would we be living in now?
And it's kind of a great premise, like --
-Yeah, they're really doing it up.
-Yeah. So they've made --
-Disney gave us an exclusive shot of Loki,
what you look like in "What If...?"
And here it is right here. We're debuting this.
Thank you, Disney.
There you go. -There you go.
-That's an exclusive right there. Yeah.
This is exciting. This is all Loki all the time.
-I -- [ Laughs ]
Well, I actually haven't seen that.
Um -- [ Laughter ]
-Loki, yes, you have.
You were back in time at one point,
and you saw. -And I drew it myself.
[ Laughter ]
Just said, "Look, this guy needs his own animated show."
The best thing about that is that I didn't have to get up
and wear all that metal and leather.
-Yeah, yeah. That was all voice.
-There's a microphone, and it's like,
"Oh, I think I can -- This is -- I think this is good.
This is going to be fun."
But I am intrigued, 'cause I haven't seen the whole thing,
and I know they've got like -- They've got everybody
from the Marvel Universe to voice their characters.
And Jeffrey Wright -- Do you know Jeffrey Wright,
the great Jeffrey Wright? -Yes. I love him.
-He is playing this character called The Watcher,
who is sort of an observer of all of these different things.
And then it sets up a whole bunch of stuff in the MCU
which I know nothing about and --
-That's the norm. You're not allowed to say anything.
The finale of "Loki,"
which, by the way, has been the show of the summer,
is this Wednesday night. You set it up now.
There's a bunch of -- We realize
there is a bunch of different Lokis.
Can you set up anything for what we're about to see Wednesday?
And I'm assuming you can't. But can you?
[ Laughter ]
-[ Chuckles ]
Jimmy, come on, man. I --
-I know.
-Yeah. But -- Well, I suppose I can tell you
is if you've followed the show thus far...
You know, I think the audience --
Well, all the characters and the audience
have a number of questions about this TVA,
the Time Variance Authority,
like, who made it?
What is it? Who runs it?
-Yes. -Is it run by anyone
or anything? -Wow. Yes.
-Who created it? -Yes.
Yes! -And all I can say --
-Wow! You're saying a lot.
[ Laughter ]
-Time will tell.
-Whoa! That's what I'm talking about.
[ Cheers and applause ]
That's exactly what you want to hear. "Time will tell."
Mm. I'm going to figure out what that means.
-You will. -Tom Hiddleston, everybody,
the one and only.
The season finale of "Loki" is available this Wednesday
on Disney+.