- We should mention that I think this is the debut
of shirtless Loki.
Congratulations.
It's all been coming to this.
- Yeah, maybe. Maybe it -
Is it? It could be.
- I'm not the world's foremost expert
but I'm sure those will correct me if I'm wrong.
Was this a focus-grouped decision?
Was this like, "It's time, guys?"
- It was, look, you'd have\nto ask Michael Waldron.
It was in the script.
- I don't know.
- [Laughs] I know where you're going with this.
It was definitely- it was in the pilot,
the first draft of the pilot that he sent me,
and I was like, "OK, Michael, I see what you're doing."
Definitely was justified.
He is part of the story.
He's going- he's on his way from somewhere
going to somewhere else.
What can I say?
Just, there we go, it's there and -
- Give the people what they want.
I always talk to actors about musing on set
when they're, like, they're the side character,
the supporting character,
and they kinda, like, sidle up to the director
or the executive producer and are like,
"Maybe I should get my own story here."
Did that ever happen early on?
Even just, like, musing to the powers that be
like, "There might be something here,
"maybe we should explore something about this character?"
- I don't know, it was -
I mean, there was always, initially in those early stories
in the MCU, there was this duality
between Thor and Loki and Loki and Thor and that we had,
that Chris and I had defined these characters together
in opposition. And I suppose it was -
Loki was always defined by his relationship to Thor
and kind of vice versa.
- So basically, I mean, I would imagine
one of the great gifts of this and maybe a fear going in
is Loki has been defined in many ways
by that relationship with Thor
and other familiar MCU characters.
So, did you see it as an exciting opportunity for this,
to see what Loki would be like unmoored
from these relationships that we've gotten to know?
- Yes and I think it was one of my,
I mean, I was so, as you know, kind of, delighted
by the opportunity and surprised and then confused
because there was some head scratching about
how we would get there.
But one of the things that I was excited by
was actually in any drama,
if you strip or take away from a character
the things that are familiar,
then something has to be revealed about what remains.
So, if you if you take Loki away from Thor,
away from Asgard,
away from all the things that he's used to being around,
what makes Loki Loki?
And in the 10 years of playing this character
or the six movies across 10 years,
in my preparation and research,
I've always found this extraordinary range and complexity
that he has this massive history.
He has all these different multitudinous facets
and contradictory characteristics,
and suddenly this is an opportunity to explore some of that
in a new environment which would then reveal, probably to me
and I hope to the audience, new things about him.
- I remember talking to you through the process
of when this was gonna get going
and you seem so thrilled not only with just the opportunity
of, kind of, being front and center with this character
and exploring new facets but also being creatively involved.
I mean, you're an executive producer on this.
As far as I know,
I think you're the first of the Marvel actors
on these Disney+ shows to be an EP on their own show.
I mean, talk to me a little bit
about what it's like to be a creative contributor, too,
and what the most recurring note was you were giving
to your collaborators on this
that you wanted to capture in a Loki series.
- Gosh, I just enjoyed it so much.
I felt so, I felt it was extremely generous
of everybody at Marvel to invite me to sit at the table
as we were generating these stories.
95% of the ideas that I had
are not in the series at all,
but maybe there's 5%, I don't know.
I had some. I had a few good ideas.
But the thing that I knew,
the thing I knew was useful would be my experience,
my physical experience of how this character behaves
and thinks and moves and responds
to various different external stimuli,
whether they are events or characters or people.
That's where I was able to, I hope, I'm able to be of use.
And also, I suppose I had a, kind of,
limited library of stuff
that I'd always found interesting about the character
which there'd never been room to explore in the films
and that I could say, "Well, what about this?
"There's this thing I found out,
"maybe we should look at that,"
and those conversations around that table, as it were,
with Michael Waldron and Kate Herron and Kevin Wright
and Michael's writing staff,
I just, I'll remember those experiences.
They were so enjoyable 'cause you never get that.
You don't get time to just fire ideas around
and go, "Well, what about this?"
And you just see where it goes,
see if it might have a place somewhere in the story.
- It occurs to me, when I look back at this character,
and this pattern continues to a degree
in the first couple episodes that I've seen -
he gets beaten up quite a bit, Tom.
You've gotten your ass kicked in many numerous ways.
- That was one of the things I used to say.
I said, "If there's any -" I can't remember.
I was like, I said to Kate and Michael at one point,
Loki, if nothing else,
"has a slightly inflated sense of his own importance
"and if you are thinking there might be a moment of humor
"that you need, just pump up the hubris
"and what shortly follows is humiliation."
- Right.
Well, it's like 'Anchorman.'
He's like Ron Burgundy of, like, the MCU.
- Right.
Heard it here first.
However, I will say this, but he also,
what I'm excited and maybe you haven't seen yet
is I'm excited to explore his magical power,
and I think that's something we've never really tapped into
in a deep way in the MCU.
So I knew we were gonna get into it,
and apart from being self-important and hubristic
and puffed up and all those things,
he can be, in the comics, highly skilled at magic.
And we might get to see a bit more of that in the series.
- Eagle-eyed viewers have noticed
from some of the early glimpses of the show
that in his case file, it notes his sexuality as fluid,
as Loki's sexuality as fluid.
And this is something that's been in the comics for years.
I guess now officially it's canon in the MCU.
Is that something that came up in the conversations
with Michael and Kate as something that was important
to, kind of, like, officially put on paper?
- Absolutely, yes.
It has been in the story of the character for hundreds,
if not thousands of years.
Loki is a trickster.
Boundaries and identity has always been fluid
and I've really enjoyed that.
I remember even when I was first cast
reading about that stuff
and I'm really pleased that we have a place to explore it.
- So, while you've been doing press for 'Loki,'
your buddies Hemsworth and company
have been wrapping up the new 'Thor' movie.
I imagine you've seen the photo Hemsworth posted
of his arms basically bulging out of his body
that he's gonna spontaneously combust.
Have you seen the photo?
- Chris, the world now knows, I think,
that Chris is an athlete of infinite capacity.
I did, I thought of him actually.
I thought of him while I was making this
and we emailed a bit.
Yeah, what's really interesting is that Thor and Loki
run on parallel tracks
and now they're in completely different places.
They would look across across the void
with some surprise, I think.
- This series also, kind of, kicks off
what seems to be, like, an important aspect of Phase Four,
which is the Multiverse.
Do you revel in the fact that, like,
again, all these years in, Loki, he's at the center of it?
He's at the center of the shenanigans
that are probably going to be very pivotal
to the next few films in Marvel.
- I mean, that's, as you know, that's well above my station
to even contemplate, but yes, I found the idea of ultimate
or parallel or contradictory\nuniverses just fascinating.
It's slightly, it was kind of confusing for a while
and there were lots of conversations
with different colored pens on a whiteboard
and squiggly lines and me going, "Wait, hang on,
"explain it to me again.
"So, they're there but they're going back in it?"
"Well, they're not really going back in time.
"They're sort of going through and around and -"
But I think they did a brilliant job of cracking it
and I love the analogy they use,
that the TVA see themselves as the gardeners of time
and then the language of it is very,
has got this, kind of, benevolent horticulturalist
inclination. They're pruning branches
and they're just pulling out weeds
and keeping the garden tidy.
That's quite a serious thing to do
is to be the arbiters of reality
and maybe reality doesn't need to be arbitrated
or controlled.
Maybe reality wants to burst out and break free.
- Yeah, exactly. But the first thing that occurred to me
when I'm watching the first couple of episodes,
and I know we've had long conversations
about our mutual love of film and filmmakers,
like, at least in the first couple of episodes,
there's Terry Gilliam in there.
It feels like it's, like, 'Brazil' and 'Time Bandits.'
I love, there's, I mean,
it seems like there's a conscious homage
to 'Jurassic Park' in there, which I know you love,
the Mr. DNA exposition thing.
- Yep, yep.
- So, were those films cited?
Were other films cited in your early conversations
of the, kind of, look and feel that you wanted to evoke?
- Yes, absolutely.
I know we all wanted it to feel very analog, I suppose,
and the TVA archiving the past,
the present, and the future in enormous libraries
but they're using paper,
and so, we wanted to feel the tangible,
it's a tangible quality of this complex bureaucracy
and so yeah, Terry Gilliam came up.
'Jurassic Park' as well.
'Blade Runner' came up a lot.
Why wouldn't it? 'Cause it's so brilliant.
The movies of David Fincher came up.
Kate Herron had architectural photographs.
I sometimes was like, "So, is it like 'Bill & Ted'
"or is it like 'Back to the Future II?'"
You know what I mean?
It goes, "Are we, we're going, we're gonna get,
"we're gonna go in, we're gonna drop in to the past
"and the future, but is it the same?
"Is it 'Back to the Future II,' where it's the wrong past?"
And that's when I'm too old.
I was born in '81, so. People understood,
we're all the same age, I'm kidding.
You find yourself, kind of, thinking about time.
All those are great references for time travel
that you grew up with.
- So, as we end, let's go back to the beginning.
I mean, I remember our first meeting, 2010 Comic-Con.
It was the big party, coming-out party for Thor and Loki.
You were doing your first press for it.
What do you remember from that day in Hall H
when you debuted the footage and we talked?
What are your recollections?
- I remember exactly where we were.
We were in, like, a lobby
and there was some very high windows behind us
and I think you were wearing, like, a plaid or check shirt.
Is that right?
- You'll see a tie and you'll know that this is old
because there's a Myspace sign behind me.
So, you know this is a long time.
I was saying to all your compatriots today,
it's a very big day.
I don't wanna over-hype it, but it's a big day, right?
- Yeah, it seems like a big day, yeah.
- So, I know you were up for Thor.
You end up- look, this is no chump change to end up as Loki.
- Yeah, I know, it's actually epic.
It's all probably worked out for the best.
I don't think I could have sustained that level of protein
and working out as Chris did.
He's done a very good job of that so I'll leave it to him.
- OK, so, Tom, what runs through your head
when you see that?
What was Tom Hiddleston of 2010
thinking that day, you think?
- What runs through my head is we both look very young.
[Laughs]
- We're both in our forties now, yep.
- Time has passed.
It's so touching.
It's so, it's really like, it's amazing that I -
It's amazing that you and I have known each other this long.
You were part of the journey for me.
No question.
Still here talking about Loki.
As I said in the clip, it was,
I think I say in the clip, "It's pretty epic."
It has been nothing short of epic.
It has been this extraordinary journey.
Being cast as Loki changed my life.
Perhaps sitting on those those high bar stools,
I wasn't aware of exactly
how much it was going to change my life,
but by then I knew Kenneth Branagh had made an amazing film
and I knew he'd made a brilliant, brilliant movie
that was going to defy people's expectations
and I'll always be indebted to him for that.