Tom Hiddleston for InStyle Men Germany, issue April 2017.

Yesterday’s Times (Saturday Review) - complete with just a hint of Eau de Cynicism about the whole thing.

Tom Hiddleston's theatre journey to Hamlet

Before we knew him from The Night Manager or as Loki in the Marvel Universe, Tom Hiddleston had humble beginnings on the London stage. As tickets for his Hamlet go on sale, we track Hiddleston’s theatre career.

He made his first foray into theatre in 1999, when he appeared at Edinburgh Festival Fringe with his student drama group. He starred in a production of Journey’s End, RC Sherriff’s First World War drama in which Hiddleston appeared as Captain Stanhope. A review in the Independent highlighted his “magnificently ferocious” performance, which “provided the emotional core of the play”. A promising start for a young actor’s career.

However, Hiddleston would not appear on stage for another six years. He was cast in the starring role in Yorgjin Oxo: The Man at Latchmere pub venue Theatre503. The bizarre piece was about a group of marshlanders and saw the audience sat on hessian sacks stuffed with hay. Again, Hiddleston shone, with The Stage hailing his “outstanding” performance.

He went on to perform in two productions at the Barbican with Cheek By Jowl. He toured Europe playing Alsemero in The Challenging, and the world when he played Posthumus Leonatus and Cloten in Cymbeline. The year was 2008, and buzz was just beginning to build around the exciting RADA graduate. In a feature interview, the Telegraph labelled him a “name to watch”, and he won the Olivier Award for Most Promising Newcomer in Cymbeline, but was also nominated for playing Cassio on Othello at the Donmar Warehouse.

His next project (which was part of the Donmar’s season in the West End) saw him star alongside Kenneth Branagh, who will direct Hiddleston as Hamlet at RADA. He played Lvov alongside Branagh’s Ivanov in the Chekhov classic, garnering five-star reviews from the critics.

After runs in The Children’s Monologues at the Old Vic and The Kingdom of Earth at the Criterion, Hiddleston returned to the Donmar Warehouse to take on the title role in Coriolanus. Yet again, he impressed the critics and was nominated for an Olivier, this time for Best Actor.

His next role on stage will be Hamlet, in an exclusive run at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He will be reunited with Branagh who directs the piece for three weeks only. If you’re lucky enough to hold a ticket, it’s sure to be a performance to remember.

Source: London Theatre

Tom Hiddleston to star in Hamlet at RADA in London

The ‘Kong: Skull Island’ actor will return to his theatre roots for a production of Hamlet, which will be directed by Kenneth Branagh with the aim of raising £20 million for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).

‘Hamlet presents almost limitless possibilities for interpretation. I can’t wait to explore them, with this great cast, at RADA. Kenneth Branagh and I have long talked about working on the play together, and now felt like the right time, at the right place,’ he said.

‘To be guided through it by him as a director, an expert and a friend, is our great good fortune. The performing arts exist to bring people together, not to break or keep them apart.’

Funds raised from the production, which will have a three-week run at RADA’s 160-seat Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre, London, from September 1-23 this year, will support the RADAttenborough Campaign, which is aiming to make money to regenerate the Academy’s Chenies Street premises.

Tom added: ‘I hope the funds raised by the production will help RADA continue to provide a wider field of equal opportunity to train actors, stage managers and technical theatre artists, from every background, to a standard of excellence and professionalism.

“The ‘Kong: Skull Island’ actor, not “the actor known as Loki”. This is important. Also, YAY!!!!!

4 May 2016 - Today Unicef UK ambassador Tom Hiddleston met with the Secretary of State for International Development Justine Greening and pupils from Hampstead School, London. A discussion took place about the UK’s role in keeping children safe in humanitarian emergencies.

Pupils shared their views on what they think is important in the lead up to the first World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in less than three weeks’ time. Top of their minds was the refugee crisis, protecting schools in war zones, and ensuring children’s rights and voices are recognised regardless of their situation or background.

Unicef UK Ambassador Tom Hiddleston said: “Children are facing more devastating wars and disasters than ever before. I have seen for myself in South Sudan that children are the hardest hit in emergencies. Children have been killed, orphaned, forced to become soldiers, kidnapped, and traumatised.

“Nearly a quarter of the world’s school-aged children now live in countries affected by crisis. Every single one of these children should be at school and learning. Education is a vital source of safety and hope for children, allowing them to learn, play and escape the horrors of war and disasters.

“At the very first World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in less than three weeks’ time, a ground-breaking new fund will be launched to get vital education to every child in need. We must make sure that education in emergencies is prioritised, otherwise a generation of children living in conflict and natural disasters will grow up without the skills they need to contribute to their countries and economies, exacerbating the already desperate situation for millions of children and their families. We must invest in their futures now.”

Secretary of State for International Development Justine Greening said: “When I speak to young people I am struck by how passionate they are about international issues and today’s debate with pupils at Hampstead School was no exception. At DFID we put young people at the heart of everything we do, whether it is supporting Syrian refugees to get an education, eradicating poverty, or improving access to healthcare and jobs in some of the poorest countries in the world.

“I’ll be taking many of the views I have heard today to the World Humanitarian Summit later this month when I discuss with world leaders how the international community can better respond to crises around the globe.”

Nearly a quarter of the world’s school-aged children – 462 million – now live in countries affected by crisis. Education is a vital source of safety and hope for children, allowing them to learn, play and escape the horrors of war and disasters. One in six of these children - 75 million - have been identified as the most in danger of missing out on getting a quality education.

About Unicef

Unicef is the world’s leading organisation for children, promoting the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere.  

Unicef UK raises funds to protect children in danger, transform their lives and build a safer world for tomorrow’s children.  As a registered charity we raise funds through donations from individuals, organisations and companies and we lobby and campaign to keep children safe. Unicef UK also runs programmes in schools, hospitals and with local authorities in the UK. For more information please visit unicef.org.uk

http://www.unicef.org.uk/Media-centre/Press-releases/Put-children-at-the-top-of-the-agenda-at-the-World-Humanitarian-Summit—Tom-Hiddleston/#.VyoWj_DT404.twitter

@beaglebitch @hiddleshoneybunny @zhora-salome @zorped @graymindlove @lokiwholockfactory @fangirlonarampage @fancykraken @cakeandrabbit

THE MYSTERY OF HIDDLESTON

This is an interview published in the Finnish film magazine “Episodi” in February 2017. Interview by Marta Balaga. Translation by me @TomTheNextLevel

It’s great to be Tom Hiddleston. Ever since his breakthrough role as Marvel’s God Of Mischief Loki his fame has been on the up. The end result? A legion of dedicated Hiddlestoners and a Golden Globe for the TV series “The Night Manager”.

Now the old Etonian’s career has reached a new high as he gets to measure his worth as an action hero in the 190 million dollar adventure “Kong : Skull Island”.

Except …

It’s crap to be Tom Hiddleston. Crimson Peak flopped badly, and less said about his version of Hank Williams in the biopic “I Saw The Light”, the better. The short affair with Taylor Swift demoted him from one of the hottest new stars to tabloid fodder. Even the Golden Globe win didn’t help. His thank you speech was criticised as massively egotistical. One of the nicer comments on twitter was “No wonder Swift called it a day.”

Now that “Kong : Skull Island” finally hits the big screen it’s time to forget the famous words “it was beauty killed the beast”. This time the beast might save the beauty’s career.

Before the interview we had some time to recall some of Hiddleston’s most memorable appearances on various chat shows on TV.

You yodel and do some brilliant impersonations. Don’t you ever relax?

I try not to take myself too seriously on chat shows. The whole idea of them is to entertain. I tune in to the wavelength of the host and have fun. I think of it as mucking about rather than putting on a show. And it’s a relief – I tend to get lost in my own head.

Acting is like having an endless conversation about identity – how we explain our personalities … even to ourselves. I am Tom. I’m from London. This is my family, this is how I was schooled. This is how I dress, this is how I speak. But we go through it daily and identity is more fluid than most want to admit. It’s entertaining to play with it.

Is that why you choose the most contrasting roles that defy compartmentalization?

I look into my potential to change myself into a different person. I’ve set myself a challenge to find something in common in superficially similar people all across the mankind by taking on different roles. It has been very humane because at the end of the day we are all motivated by the same things: loss, love, grief.

Can you do that when you play the Marvel villain?

I don’t differentiate between roles like that. Maybe I think that being a villain and a hero are connected by what choices you make. Villains make bad choices. Heroes choose well. But in the end we are all part of the same human mass. People are genuinely multi-faceted and conflicting characters and so is Loki. That’s my approach to a role whether it’s Shakespeare or “Kong : Skull Island”.

You were a Kong fan before?

I’ve always liked Kong. Especially what is says about the awesome power of nature. It’s a very humbling story because it makes you think how small we really are. But nowadays it’s rare to get to act in a film like this. I mean damn, it’s a King Kong film! You can’t compare it to anything.

Am I right in saying this story is set in the 1970’s?

That is something (director) Jordan (Vogt-Roberts) wanted to stick to right from the beginning. Back then technology wasn’t as developed, it was easier to believe in mysteries. It’s nice that somebody wanted to make a film that feels like that. He wanted to have that rough around the edges atmosphere just after the end of the Vietnam war.

An actor has to react to what he sees and Jordan made that surprisingly easy. We travelled to Australia, Vietnam, Hawaii. We were constantly outside. We were filming in real environments which isn’t a given (in films any more) and that was an enormous help. When you are physically in a real place it’s easier to react. Vietnam especially was a fantastic place. In a way it’s a very retro movie. Even my dialogue with Brie Larson, who plays a war photographer, has hints of old Hollywood.

You got to travel when you were making The Night Manager as well …

We went to Switzerland, Morocco, Majorca. The most important place was London though as I did my own research at the Rosewood Hotel in Holborn. The night manager there has been on the job for 25 years and he was perfect. He told me how to treat people so they feel welcome. It was fascinating to watch what sort of discipline and forgetting about your own needs it requires. Running a hotel is like theatre. There’s the stage and the scenes behind. The whole thing is like a performance that depends upon planning the minute details and taking everything in consideration.

I was trying to think about Pine’s army career and the needed know how he has. He enjoys the anonymity a uniform gives you. The guilt and the shame he feels because Roper (played by Hugh Laurie) benefits from death and killing drives him to be an agent. As an ex-solider he understands the ramification of arms dealing. I haven’t been a solider although I’ve played one many times. Even in Kong … My character is an ex British Air Force captain who is traumatised because he was in the war in Vietnam.

I appreciate what they do. Although I am a pacifist and would rather go through all other available options before the army needs to step in I find it incomprehensibly brave that some people are ready to die for their country or their ideology.

There’s another character with an army background: Bond.

Listen, if they ask it will a massive day for me. Nowadays we spy on ourselves, we live under constant surveillance but you get the feeling the talks about our safety are being held behind closed doors and we’ll never find out about them. The secrets behind the curtains are fascinating because today there people who hide amongst us. Maybe that’s why spy stories have a made a comeback.

Do you still believe art can change the world or has the commercial side of it made you more cynical?

Art can inspire, challenge, make you sad and give you joy. I really believe that because it’s happened to me. I felt a great connection to Mike Leigh’s films when I was younger. I saw “Secrets & Lies” (1996) when I was about 16 and the humanity in the film touched me. When I saw “The Constant Gardener” the world felt bigger than I had imagined. Art can be an emotional key.

I made friends with a doctor from Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) He does brave things, travels around war zones and operates on children’s brains to remove bullets. He told me got the inspiration to become a a surgeon after seeing “The Killing Fields”. Art has the power to change the world by guiding us in the right direction.

You can also read the article online (in Finnish) HERE

Damn, what an opening.

GQ Japan Interview - June 2017 Issue

Tom Hiddleston is a Man Who Keeps His Head

An exclusive interview with the hero of Kong: Skull Island!

Tom Hiddleston is calm, cool, and collected

He’s currently playing the lead role in the hit movie Kong: Skull Island now in theaters. GQ interviewed him personally on his first trip to Japan.

He plays a soldier with extraordinary physical abilities

Tom Hiddleston is a British actor being widely discussed as a prominent prospect for the next James Bond. He achieved instant Hollywood fame as the villain Loki in Thor and The Avengers, and in 2017 won the Golden Globe for Best Actor for his role in the TV drama The Night Manager. Now Hiddleston stars in Kong: Skull Island as a former British Special Air Service (SAS) soldier against King Kong, the “guardian” of the island. We asked him about how he prepared for this role.

“When they’re faced with something they have to confront, they have the proper strength to confront it. But they avoid confrontation and conflict as much as possible.”

The body is a machine, so you have to maintain it

He’s tall, at 188cm, with long, slender limbs. Hiddleston appears before me decked out in a Gucci suit; on the table is a copy of GQ U.S.’s March issue with himself on the cover, and the first thing he says, smiling, is, “I know that guy!”

In contrast to his friendly personality, he’s known for his stoicism when it comes to preparing for a role. He immediately set about preparing for Kong: Skull Island about a year and a half before filming began.

“What kind of person is James Conrad, and is he the type of man who, when setting out on an adventure where huge challenges await him, will act based on his own convictions? Building up the character piece by piece like this was a really exciting process for me.”

In order to portray the high-level physicality of a former SAS soldier, he says he performed grueling training and stunt work every day. So does he regularly keep himself fit, as an actor?

“I do a lot of things, but running comes first. It’s my therapy. It’s a time for me to think up ideas, so it’s important to keep myself moving every day. The body is a machine; you have to maintain it. At the same time, I think it’s also really important to come up with an exercise routine. Working hard and challenging yourself creates a positive impact on your spirit, and above all keeps you true to yourself. On a good day, exercise makes me more positive, and on a bad day, exercise saves me. It’s like a gift.”

“I am blessed”

The filming of Kong: Skull Island extended over three continents on location in Australia, Hawaii, and Vietnam. By seamlessly editing the footage together, the filmmakers created a world unlike anything seen before.

“I’ll never forget the challenges and blessings of filming in such amazing locations as long as I live. Another very fond memory is of riding in a real Huey [Bell UH-1 Iroquois military helicopter used during the Vietnam War] with the doors open, flying over the island of Oahu at 5 o’clock in the evening. And following behind us was a helicopter with a camera attached to it… That’s just one of the incredible experiences I had. In that moment, I felt how lucky, how blessed I am.”

He says he also enjoyed interacting with the locals on their first filming location. “I love Hawaii but I’d never spent such a long period of time there before. I learned how to surf! When all the American cast went home for Thanksgiving, I stayed in Hawaii and learned surfing. Learning it in Hawaii is the best. The waves were very gentle so I was able to really enjoy my time there.”

Rudyard Kipling’s poem If is his personal ideal

In this year alone, Hiddleston won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Limited Series and will be reprising his role as Thor’s longtime enemy, Loki in Thor: Ragnarok this November. We asked him, at the peak of his career, what his idea of the perfect gentleman is.

“Someone who has a sense of responsibility, kindness, and respect. I suppose they’re self-restrained, they look after their mother. When faced with something they have to confront, they have the proper strength to confront it. But they avoid confrontation and conflict as much as possible.”

That sounds like Hiddleston’s Kong: Skull Island character, James Conrad. But when faced with someone or something that must be confronted, does he personally fight back?

“It’s not about fighting back with violence, but simply facing those kinds of situations head-on. I don’t have enough time to say the whole thing, but I have a poem called If by Rudyard Kipling on my kitchen wall. It goes like this:

It goes on for a bit, but I’m always thinking about how I want to have these kinds of high ideals.”

Many, many, many thanks Japanese Translator Anon!! This is wonderful. (Especially the Kipling.)

Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie at the Empire Awards, Empire Magazine, issue June 2017.

Via Torrilla/weibo

Tom Hiddleston for InStyle Men Germany, issue April 2017.

Apeocalypse Now - The Making Of Kong : Skull Island 

Total Film 256 April 2017 

A second series of award-winning drama The Night Manager is in development.

Director Susanne Bier told Broadcast the script was “slowly being developed” for the follow-up.

Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman starred in the BBC One thriller, which was a hit last year. Its three stars won Golden Globes, while Danish director Bier won an Emmy Award.

The series was based on John le Carre’s 1993 novel - but the book does not have a sequel.

Bier told Broadcast: “We all very much want to do a season two, but the thing we absolutely do not want is to do something that does not live up to the level of season one.

“That would be a really bad idea.”

She was discussing the drama at Keshet’s INTV conference in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

More than nine million people watched the finale of The Night Manager on the BBC last March.

Hiddleston played enigmatic Jonathan Pine, who goes undercover to expose billionaire arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie). Hiddleston has said he would consider making a second series.

Meanwhile, Le Carre announced on Tuesday that fictional spy George Smiley will return in a new novel - the character’s first appearance in print for 25 years. A Legacy of Spies will be published in September.

The BBC is also adapting le Carre’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, in which Smiley also appears, which will air next year.

Interviews with Brie Larson and Tom Hiddleston about Kong Skull Island on Episodi Magazine 2/2017 issue

Here’s the translation to Tom’s interview (last two pages). Finishing the rest tomorrow.

[Few words before you devour the interview: yes, here in Finland no one knows about High-Rise bc it wasn’t shown anywhere apart from two screenings on an indie film festival in last November and The Night Manager wasn’t really a hit over here. You are propably as baffled about this as I am and I am a Finn.]

The secret of Hiddleston

It’s great to be Tom Hiddleston. Ever since his role as the evil god Loki in Marvel films his star has been on the rise. As result he has a legion of devoted Hiddlestoners and a Golden Globe from The Night Manager. Now the career of the Eton trained Brit is reaching new heights when he has the opportunity to show his value as an action hero in the adventure film Kong Skull Island directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts that cost over USD190 million. Except that…

It’s not that great to be Tom Hiddleston. Crimson Peak flopped badly and it’s better to forget his take on country legend Hank Williams in I Saw The Light. Short relationship with Taylor Swift dropped him from one of the hottest new film stars into mere filling of gossip magazines.

继续阅读

“Apologies for the shirtlessness,” says Tom Hiddleston. “I didn’t want to show off.” The world’s most impeccably spoken Marvel baddie is looking awfully embarrassed. I’ve caught him emerging topless from his trailer, late at night, with female company. The makeup artist has been in with him, carefully pawing at his torso. Hiddleston is shooting a movie in Hawaii and, as it is, his skin doesn’t look sufficiently sun damaged. Muddier stuff is slathered on, and our star is good to go.

This dramatic tan is part of the latest, and perhaps most adventurous, step in Hiddleston’s ascent to the A-list: the lead role in a grand new reboot of the King Kong franchise. It is why we are both standing in mud in the middle of the night on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

The question arises, though: do we really need another movie about King Kong? Ever since the romantic giant ape landed in New York in 1933 with a giant crush on Fay Wray, he has cropped up in at least another six films, most recently Peter Jackson’s handsome 2005 remake. In the latest reincarnation, Kong: Skull Island, he is getting the origins treatment – his story beginning again, ready to be continued in future films. Reassuringly, any reservations one might have about such a project seem to be shared by the film’s producers, who chuck around words such as “fresh” and “current” as casually as Kong juggles biplanes.

“I went in and pitched a movie I would want to see and my friends would want to see,” says the director, Jordan Vogt-Roberts. “I honestly thought they were going to laugh me out of the room. Then they responded really well and we started building that story.”

One can understand this initial concern. The 33-year-old has just one full-length credit to his name: the low-key coming-of-age indieThe Kings of Summer. The only thing that film has in common with this one is that trees feature. Vogt-Roberts also looks every inch the indie director – gold medallions, heavy hipster beard – not a guy you would automatically trust with a reported $190m (£152m) budget. But maybe it is because of his indie credentials that the vibe on set seems so relaxed. There is an army-like camaraderie between the actors playing soldiers and those playing non-military folk.

So what is the movie that Vogt-Roberts and his pals would want to watch? Well, it’s set in 1972: the Vietnam war is almost over and the Landsat programme is dawning. For the first time, satellite imagery is able to capture the Earth as a whole and shine a light on previously unknown areas. A voyage to discover what really lies on a mysterious island is launched with a ragtag crew, all with conflicting missions.

“In the early 70s,” says Vogt-Roberts, “the world was in chaos, and I love the idea of using that as an access point for the characters, taking people who are in the middle of sexual revolutions and racial riots and losing wars for the first time and political scandals – people who are watching the world crumble around them – and sending them to an island untouched by man. There’s a sense of catharsis to that.”

But don’t be fooled by the film’s vintage feel. The producers are keen to  position this as a contemporary adventure. Recruiting Hiddleston, hot off award-winning TV showThe Night Manager, is indicative, and he is surrounded by an eclectic and self-consciously contemporary ensemble. There is 2016’s best actress Oscar-winner Brie Larson, franchise addict Samuel L Jackson, character actor John C Reilly, Straight Outta Compton breakouts Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell, plus John Goodman, fresh from his terrifying turn in10 Cloverfield Lane.

“It’s a pretty big family to be travelling around the world with,” Larson says, mid-midnight snack. We are in an open air tent and she is ploughing through salad, surprisingly energetic and awake. She has just done the umpteenth take of one especially draining scene; there are many more to come. “Usually, I’d be done by now,” she says with a grin. “Most films I’ve done are 20-, 30-day shoots. So I keep thinking this is the end and we’re not even a quarter of the way in.”

To create a place of unique otherworldliness that could conceivably exist on Earth, three locations – Australia, Vietnam and Hawaii – are being amalgamated. There is an emphasis on bricks–and-mortar sets rather than a CGI overload, which is reserved for the big man himself (a Kong record height of roughly 85ft/26 metres) and a host of nasty creatures with whom he shares his ecosystem. “Jordan always insisted that we should be in real places,” Hiddleston says. “There should be as little soundstage or green-screen work as possible. He was location-scouting for nine or 10 months.”

Despite the hour, he is animated and enthusiastic as he talks to me between takes. This scene involves the characters arguing over whether Kong is friend or foe. It is intense, but what is initially thrilling to watch from the wings becomes notably less exciting the 30th time round. While Hiddleston and Larson remain upbeat (she does an improvised workout with a prop gun whenever the camera stops rolling), Jackson is starting to feel the strain. “How many times have we done this?” he asks. No one seems to know.

When it comes to my chat with him, I’m gathered with a handful of other journalists and his weariness seeps through.

“Why do you think this King Kong is different from the other King Kongs that we’ve seen,” asks one journalist. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen it,” replies Jackson.

“When we spoke to the director and the other actors, they compared your character to Captain Ahab. Is that something that inspired you too,” asks another. “No,” says Jackson.

Still, at least Jackson made it to Hawaii this time. In 1992, he was due to head here to film his doomed role in Jurassic Park when a hurricane destroyed the set before his scenes were shot. His work on Steven Spielberg’s dinosaur thriller was consequently based in LA. His biggest challenge for both projects, he reports, remains the invisible co-stars.

“The first lesson I got on green screen was from George Lucas years ago: the more you do, the more we have to draw,” he says. Do the practical sets help? “No, because you still have to ask the same questions. How big is it? Where is it? How fast is it moving? Sometimes they don’t have the answer to that.”

At least his Avengers co-star is living and breathing, right? “Tom’s got his fans,” he says with a smile. “A lot of girls. It’s good to work with people you know and trust. I guess he’ll be going back into the Marvel universe and put that green suit on again. Hopefully, I’ll be back with my eye patch and we’ll be together again.”

The love is mutual: Hiddleston waxes on about how Jackson is “a consummate professional … just a very fine actor”. But that, surprisingly, is about it when it comes to romance in the film. Despite Kong’s penchant for women, in this version, he is all business, no pleasure.

“This is not a traditional Beauty and the Beast story,” says Vogt-Roberts. “I personally don’t want to see a damsel-in-distress story and I don’t think the rest of the world really wants to see that any more.”

This was a deal-breaker for Larson, too, who added tenacity to a victim narrative in Room and will next be squaring off with a warehouse full of gun-toting blokes in Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire. “We’re in a really interesting time when we’re interested in seeing something different,” she says. “I’ve seen women who have found their way to continue to be feminine but still exert a sense of force and a sense of strength, and that’s important to me.”

Kong: Skull Island, then, is dodging some familiar tropes. But it is also part of a very modern trend: not just a kickstart to one dusty franchise, but a way of breathing life into a shared universe, a world also inhabited by another giant of the screen: Godzilla. The breadcrumbs have already been dropped online, and there are easter eggs in the film to reward the hardcore monster fans. But, on set, everyone is tight-lipped about the upcoming face-off, scheduled for 2020.

“I don’t know much about it,” Hiddleston says. “We’ve got to finish this one. I obviously know it’s a plan and that’s what Legendary [the company in charge of both properties] wants to do. It’s exciting and something that hasn’t been done in a long time. If it’s done in the right way, then it could be cool.”

Godzilla 2, with its rather leading title, King of the Monsters, is next, with Millie Bobby Brown of Stranger Things attached. Might a Kong sequel be on the way, too? Vogt-Roberts shrugs off talk with a lightness befitting his roots, rather than his reality: “That’s a little bit above my pay grade.”

• Kong: Skull Island is released in the UK on 10 March.

How big of a deal is Tom Hiddleston's character?

As mentioned above, Hiddleston plays Captain James Conrad, a S.A.S. Operative who trained with American forces in Cambodia. He’s also a survivalist and a tracker.

As Hiddleston put it, “he’s the guy you send in to find missing persons if a plane or a helicopter has crashed in the jungle because he has a special tracking ability.”

Conrad is also a man in search of a mission. When Goodman’s character comes along and offers Conrad a job, he can’t resist, as Hiddleston explained: “Bill Randa, who works for Monarch, comes to find him in a back alley somewhere, and he says ‘We need you on this mission.’ [Conrad] says, ‘What’s the mission?’ [Randa] says, 'Well, you know, we’re making a map of an island in the South Pacific and we need someone with survival skills. We need someone with your ability.’ And he’s like, 'That sounds sufficiently shady.’”

Money is money, so Conrad comes onboard. “He’s there kinda skeptical, and he takes the money and then they get to the island and there’s a huge prehistoric ape on the island,” Hiddleston continued. “I think that’s where, suddenly, Conrad’s been kind of spiritually asleep or sleepwalking. He wakes up and, suddenly, his very unique and special skill kicks in and he becomes indispensable to the team.”

If you want to see Tom Hiddleston play an action hero, “Kong: Skull Island” is for you.

Source

“Jungle Boogie”: Kong: Skull Island finds its way to Empire Magazine, issue March 2017.

Via Torrilla/weibo

“Jungle Boogie”, Empire Magazine, March 2017. (via damnyouhiddles)

Three words: cyborg debt collector.

This Hiddleston guy’s really having a moment, huh? Off the back of a wonderful, bonkers trailer for the new King Kong Movie and a starring role in an even more wonderful, bonkers dystopia movie, High Rise, he’s now reportedly attached to another appropriately outrageous film.

Tom Hiddleston will be starring in Ben Wheatley’s Hard Boiled, an adaptation of a Frank Miller graphic novel about a cyborg debt collector questioning his own existence in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. Think Mad Max, but with a bunch more bureaucracy and a kind of Westworld-y vibe.

This will be Hiddleston’s second collaboration with Ben Wheatley, who also directed High Rise. Wheatley along with Tom is something of a hot commodity these days, able to jump from genre to genre with complete effortlessness: His pitch-black comedy Sightseers is one of the funniest and darkly disturbing movies you’ll see in your life, and his under-watched horror Kill List is an impeccable, nasty cult classic. For real, go watch Kill List right the hell now.

This is a great move for Hiddleston, too: Besides playing Loki the only good villain in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, his leading-man credentials are starting to pile up. Next to his audience-friendly work like Kong, it’s great to see him willing to indulge in some weirder, more divisive and speculative stuff so early in his A-list career. Long may he reign.

Hard Boiled is yet to get a release date, but it will be the next project in Hollywood’s mission to eventually adapt literally everything Frank Miller has ever written.