Tom Hiddleston was on The Tonight Show to talk about his Broadway play “Betrayal” when host Jimmy Fallon brought up the initial audition process for 2011’s Thor. Hiddleston is now famous for playing Thor’s sneaky brother Loki, but he didn’t try out for that part.
Hiddleston is always a gracious good sport in interviews, so he doesn’t roll his eyes out of his head when Fallon digs up the old audition footage. The brief clip shows the actor, blond-haired, in a dramatic screentest to play Thor, hammer in hand. Ardent Thor fans have seen this footage before, and giggled over gifs of it for years, but it’s fun watching Hiddleston react to it in real-time. He explains that the “remit” in those days was that anyone who was over six feet with blond hair could have a go at auditioning for Thor, a process that took three months and gave Hiddleston the (brief) hope that he might land the title role.
He reveals that he never even auditioned to play Loki. Clearly casting directors saw something in him (Thor director Kenneth Branagh, who worked with Hiddleston on the TV series Wallander, likely put in a good word), and these days, it’s impossible to imagine anyone else playing Loki—or Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, for that matter. Of the hush-hush upcoming Loki series, Hiddleston could only tell Fallon that it begins production next year. Marvel Studios is always watching.
Scroll to around 4:50 to see Hiddleston demonstrate his acting prowess by making himself cry onscreen over … Baby Yoda, of course.
(via Uproxx, image: Marvel/screengrab)
- It’s Thanksgiving in America! Nothing else is happening! Everyone you know here is in a food coma!
What did you eat today?
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