It seemed back in 2018 that Tom Hiddleston’s time with Marvel had come to an end when Thanos killed Loki at the start of “Avengers: Infinity War.” But that was swiftly undone with “Avengers: Endgame” a year later thanks to the film’s time-traveling shenanigans.
Now 15 years since first making his Marvel debut in “Thor,” Hiddleston is still playing the Asgardian trickster, having reprised the role in the two-season Disney+ series “Loki” and again in the upcoming blockbuster “Avengers: Doomsday,” due out next December.
In a career-spanning interview with GQ, Hiddleston said his affinity for Loki stems from his love of redemption stories from his childhood. As a teen, he saw “The Shawshank Redemption” in theaters, and a year later, he saw Paul Scofield star in the play “John Gabriel Borkman” as a banker imprisoned for embezzlement and who struggles and fails to put his life back together after his release.
““I still find it incredibly emotional. It’s so moving, the idea that you get another chance. I suppose I want that for everyone,” Hiddleston said.
Loki proves to be more successful than John Gabriel Borkman in finding another chance, as by the end of the streaming series bearing his name, he finds himself in control of all the timelines in the Marvel Cinematic Universe … or multiverse, as it can be called at this point.
Hiddleston said that he enjoyed working on “Loki” because it involved the character coming to terms with his past, which included his failed invasion of Earth in “The Avengers” and his uneasy relationship with his brother, Thor.
“In order to become someone different, whose story had a different ending, he had to make peace with the things he did,” Hiddleston says. “It gave him the power of authorship over his own story.”
Of course, what Loki does next in “Avengers: Doomsday” is any fan’s guess. “Loki” was designed to kick off a timeline centered around a new multiversal villain, Kang the Conqueror, played by Jonathan Majors. But Marvel Studios was forced to can that multi-year arc after Majors was convicted of misdemeanor assault and harassment charges.
Hiddleston, who has finished shooting his scenes for “Doomsday,” is as coy about what’s to come as the rest of the Marvel universe. “It is monumental. The center of the story is absolutely brilliant and was so surprising when I read it. It just has never been done before,” he said.
Along with “Avengers: Doomsday,” Hiddleston most recently appeared in a West End production of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” and in this past summer’s film adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Life of Chuck” from director Mike Flanagan.
He also finished filming in Nepal for the upcoming Apple TV movie “Tenzing,” in which he plays Edmund Hillary opposite Genden Phuntsok as Tenzing Norgay, the sherpa who accompanied Hillary in the first ever climb of Mount Everest.
And on New Year’s Day, Hiddleston will return to his biggest non-Marvel claim to fame, “The Night Manager,” 10 years removed from the six-episode series based on John Le Carre’s spy novel. The new series will air on BBC One in the U.K. and on Amazon Prime elsewhere starting Jan. 11.
