And though she be but little, she is fierce!

When Tom Hiddleston landed his career-changing role in Marvel’s Thor back in April 2009, he never dreamed he would be playing the character for nearly 15 years. To be fair, no one did—except maybe Marvel’s mastermind Kevin Feige, who had begun laying the cinematic groundwork for a multi-billion dollar franchise. At the time, Hiddleston happily threw himself into extensive research and prep to play the duplicitous brother of Thor (Chris Hemsworth). 

“I was cast in April 2009, and I had about eight months to build the character from the ground up,” Hiddleston says on this week’s Little Gold Men. “So that was a deep dive into everything Loki from any comic book, any Norse myth, any saga, everything—from the whole run of Marvel comics to the ancient Scandinavian stories, and how he pops up in The Ring cycle for Wagner, and Jim Carrey is wearing the mask of Loki in The Mask.” Hiddleston was trying to discover “this sense of, what's Loki's impact on human imagination and culture? And then synthesizing all of that into the story we’re telling. That was such a delightful period of discovery and curiosity.”

Hiddleston’s scene-stealing portrayal made him an instant fan favorite, laying a formidable foundation for a character who went on to appear in six more films and the stand-alone series Loki. The two-season series threw the character into a new dimension and timeline, stripped him of all his creature comforts, and gave the actor new challenges to tackle.

“In successive iterations, [my approach] has been, how do I keep it interesting?” he says. “I genuinely say this to myself and to others: ‘We're not reheating yesterday's meal in the microwave. We're cooking up something new.’ It's trying to find new ingredients or new challenges for the character, for us as actors, so that it feels like the same person is growing. Because that's what human beings do. They don't stay the same, they grow. Sometimes they regress, but there's always movement.”

Hiddleston has gone on to star in a wide array of projects outside the Marvel universe, of course, from his Emmy-nominated, Golden Globe-winning work in The Night Manager to Jim Jarmusch’s acclaimed romantic vampire drama Only Lovers Left Alive and Steven Spielberg’s epic War Horse. But he’s definitely spent the most time with the God of Mischief. And though no official announcement has been made, the final episode of Loki season two strongly indicates the closing of a formative chapter.

The actor and executive producer stopped by Little Gold Men for a thoughtful discussion about the gift of developing and playing a single character for so long, the surreal fun of working with drama school classmates turned costars Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Wunmi Mosaku, and getting to come up with the character's last line (for now). Listen below, where you can also read excerpts from the conversation.

Vanity Fair: Did the series version of Loki feel a little more stripped down, or did you have the same kind of mindset playing him as you did in the films?

Tom Hiddleston: Yes. I think it was stripped down literally in the sense of taking away the costume, but stripped down spiritually and in his soul. I thought [the concept] was such a brilliant idea, and it wasn't mine. It was [executive producers] Michael Waldron and Kevin Wright, and the great and the good at Marvel Studios. I thought for any character, if you were presented with your life and watching a kind of highlight reel of it, what would it add up to? Would it be satisfying? Would it be meaningful? Would it be amusing? Would it be disappointing? And I thought to do that with Loki especially, as it's the journey of a life that the audience is familiar with, but he hasn't seen it. I just thought it was a brilliant conceit. And then I leaned into this idea of the leopard being challenged to change his spots. Because you'd have to if your life ended up in murder by Thanos and humiliation. You'd want to try something new.

And that was really fun, developing a story which was actually very philosophical. It asks the question of Loki, as I hope it asks the question of all of us: Are we in control of the course of our lives? Do we have any free will, and can we break free from any kind of predetermination? It seemed like a great question, and a fun way to ask it.

You’re also an executive producer on the series. How did you take on that role? What did you get to do?

Honestly, it was such an honor and I loved it. I loved the extra imagining and problem solving. I was invited into the writer's room really early, season one, even earlier on season two. And to borrow the words from Lin Manuel Miranda, to be in the room where it happens, and to sit around the table and break story and crunch through the great creative ‘what if’ questions—what if Loki did this? What if Mobius [Owen Wilson] did that? What if they couldn't find Sylvie? What if the TVA ran on an energy source, and it wasn't energy, it was time?

Can you take any credit for bringing Ke Huy Kwan or your RADA buddies Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Wunmi Mosaku on board? I love that that was a little bit of a through-line, that you all got to work together.

Well, when their names came up, Gugu and Wunmi particularly, I was able to say, those guys are great. And Ke was just an amazing idea because actually, [his character] Ouroboros was coming to life on the page. Somebody suggested Ke, and Everything Everywhere All At Once had just come out. And I was like, genius: somebody call him now before we lose him. He was so joyful and optimistic and happy to be there, so honored to be there. He'd wanted to be in a Marvel project his whole life, I think, and, and he brought everything and more to that character. The day he landed, he came from the airport straight to the studio, probably thinking, ‘I'll just say hello and go back to my digs.’ And Owen and I were actually rehearsing the scene before Mobius and Loki meet OB for the first time. And he came in and he listened. And then we got to the bit where we were like, ‘You're in the next bit. Do you want to do it?’ He said ‘Okay!’ And he stayed and rehearsed for three hours. I think he felt completely crazy having just [traveled] across the continents, but it was so brilliant. And the chemistry was so immediate between the three of us, and so funny. We all love Ke.

Thinking about your journey with this character and all the places he has taken you, has there been a surreal aspect to it? I think about you being in drama school with Gugu and Wunmi—now you're getting paid to play.

It's a wonderful question, and I'm never unaware of the great gift that this job is. Especially because it happens all the time,: I go out into the world and I meet young people or children, and they're so amazed that they’re meeting Loki. I'm obviously not Loki, but the response is so immediate and so emotional and so joyful. What a gift. It's the best job in the world. And I never dreamed back then that I would be part of something with such reach and for so long. It just is the most unlikely, surprising, delightful thing. And we—Wunmi and Gugu I've known for a long time. It is amazing to look and go, ‘Can you believe we're here, we're doing this?’ It is exciting too, because it feels right in some way and they're great actors. They are brilliant.

Do you get recognized as the character, or are people starting to recognize you for your other work?

Oh, it's always different. I went to a friend's birthday party the other day—a friend and his wife, both turning the same age. They got a taco stand. I went to get my taco and the guys were like, ‘Only Lovers Left Alive, man. Love that film.’ And I said, ‘Thank you very much. That's very kind.’ Some people say The Night Manager. Some people stop me in the street and go, ‘It's you! You're the dancer.’ And they're referring to some talk show, some bit of dancing I did on a talk show from like a thousand years ago, which really tickles me.

Speaking of dancing, I wanted to bring up your physicality. With the most recent season of Loki in particular and that time slip, did you have to have massages and stretch after? Because it seems like such a jarring movement.

It's jerky, yes. I had to put my body under a kind of relentless physical stress. But I think it pays off in the way it's presented. In terms of movement and physicality, it comes from my own admiration for other performers when I sense that there is a really, alive and visceral physicality in the performance. Some of people are great actors, very cerebral, very intelligent, but sometimes not always fully embodied. And I love the actors who are giving me a sense that the whole body is occupying whichever space that is. They could be on a horse, they could be driving a car, they could have just run in through the jungle. I don't know, it could be anything, but a real sense of physicality is always something I admire in other actors.

One of my favorite things in doing a little research about your work on this season was that you got to craft Loki’s last line and it also maybe came from going on a run. Can you talk about that?

Well, first on running, I love it and it is a big part of my life. And a big part of my creative life. Running outside, in space, in the world with only your own legs to carry you and your own breath to fuel you, I find incredibly freeing. And it's where I do some of my best thinking and dreaming and imagining. Things bubble up from inside you. So I often run at the beginning of a day, very early and with an awareness of what's coming, what the scenes of the day are. Sometimes things will bubble up. And maybe that's just extra oxygen in the brain, who knows?  But to the point about that last line: one of the things I kept trying to guide our team back to was that the whole series, both seasons, was really about finding purpose, or re-finding, re-defining, re-discovering a sense of purpose. And I think a primal need in all of us, is that we need our lives to mean something. So I kept coming back to this line from The Avengers, ‘I am Loki of Asgard and I am burdened with glorious purpose.’ And we kept thinking, well, if Loki has a second chance, he gets to redefine his purpose or re-imagine it. I went for a run and was listening to some film scores, and it was a beautiful day. I was thinking about the journey of playing this character and where it started, and all the people that I have had the great good fortune to work with and become friends with—that completely unique kind of soul-sharing relationship where you make something together. And I remembered the end of the first Thor film, and how emotional that felt and. I just suddenly thought, that's what he should say—but it should mean something completely different. Loki's last line in Thor, directed by Kenneth Branagh, is, ‘I could have done it, Father. I could have done it for you, for all of us.’ And of course his effort to gain his father's pride has been misguided and ill thought-out. And then at the end of Loki season 2, 14 years later, he turns to Mobius and Sylvie and says, ‘I know what I want I know what kind of god I need to be. For you. For all of us.’ It felt very resonant somehow. I hope the audience picked up on that.

Are you able to just say goodbye when it's wrap time, or do you have any sort of meditative, formal way of saying goodbye to a project or a character?

This story contains spoilers for the Season Two finale of Loki.

It's been—what's the word?—a hectic couple of months for Loki's executive producer and head writer, Eric Martin. Rolling out a six-episode television series from a billion-dollar-plus-grossing superhero universe is no easy feat, even during normal times. But doing it during an actors' strike, which pretty much shifts the promotion of said television series entirely onto your own shoulders? Phew.

So when I caught up with Martin not even 24 hours after Loki's uber-chaotic Season Two finale aired, I asked him, you know, how he was doing. "I'm good," he said. "Relieved more than anything. I'm not great at celebrating victories. But I definitely felt some pride and had a bunch of people over from the show last night to watch the finale. That was a lovely event."

Even by MCU-postgame standards, we had a lot to talk about. Of course, the Loki finale begged a multiverse's worth of questions: Is Tom Hiddleston's Loki the most powerful being in this entire story, quite literally holding time and space together? Will Owen Wilson's Mobius transition to a full-time, Heineken-sipping suburban dad? Is Season Three in the cards? Also, how Martin handled the ongoing legal issues of star Jonathan Majors, which emerged after filming wrapped. Uneven responses from reviewers and fans, too. Add to that, Variety's explosive dispatch from earlier this month, which alleged significant turmoil at Marvel.

Here, Martin opened up about Loki's journey to true godliness, where Sophia Di Martino's Sylvie goes next, his thoughts on Loki's critics, and more. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

ESQUIRE: Before we really get into it, I have to ask: How does food work at the TVA?

ERIC MARTIN: That's an interesting question, because time isn't passing. I always approached it as if there is a [nutritive] requirement. Thermodynamics still apply and they need to create energy to move. But they don't get much time for it. Everything moves quickly at the TVA. You're always working and you get your nine-minute lunch break. There was a great gag we had in Season One. We ended up just having to cut it, but it was funny. We see a hunter in the cafeteria—they finish their meal, and then they just prune the tray. Instead of throwing anything away.

Now that we’ve seen the season, we know what the bookends are: Loki going from the He Who Remains aftermath to becoming the man at the end of time himself. Tell me about getting from point A to B.

The big idea was taking Loki from a lowercase-g god, to a capital-G God, powering him up to that place where he gets his throne—but it's not a throne he wants anymore. This is a duty. He's doing this so everyone else can have their lives. He's giving up the thing that he wants most so that everyone else can have their free will… We wanted to power up his abilities, but also his wisdom and knowledge.

Are we meant to understand that he’s suffering?

I leave that up to interpretation. That final image is meant to be ambiguous. So I'll let people make up their own minds there. If you look into mythology, someone like Atlas is an interesting person to look at with that.

Let’s talk about some of the other heroes. It’s great that Mobius is choosing the path of an Owen Wilson Character.

Mobius was the one in turmoil through all of this, truly not knowing which way to go. As much as he was this rascal that kind of broke the rules a little bit, he was a company man. Now, finding out that company isn't a place [where] he wants to work scrambled everything going into Season Two. So it's like, Well, what is my role? He just takes on the mission, while trying to ignore the other possibilities that are now out there. So with him by the end of the season, it's like he's just now able to go explore and figure out the opportunities that are out there.

I was surprised to see Sylvie alongside him in that moment. She seems to be in the same place of We’ll see where I go next.

Sylvie is interesting, because of all the stuff with McDonald's and her living that quiet life. It feels very gap year-ish. I'm not quite ready to grow up and do the thing. And she was pulled out of that. Now the work begins. I'm not sure where she goes from here. But I don't think she's going to live just a quiet life. Maybe she would. I don't know. But she's going to make a very active decision about what she's going to do—whatever that is. She's making that choice. It isn't just like, Oh, I'm going to feel things out. She's going to go in a direction.

Did you ever get to step foot in that McDonald's?

Oh, yeah. It was amazing. Everything was so period-specific. McDonald's has an in-house historian that advises on [projects like this]. It's one of those things I never considered like, Is that a thing? And then it's like, Of course it is. That's a gigantic company.

What about Ravonna's final scene?

I'll let people muse about what that can mean. She's up in the air. There are things that can happen with her. If you look to the comics, there are some fun inferences that can be drawn from the pyramid. And you know, who knows? Does Alioth kill her? Or did they strike up a friendship? Maybe Alioth remembers her? I don't know.

Jonathan Majors figures heavily into the season, between Victor Timely and the return of He Who Remains. I imagine it might have been a difficult position for you when allegations against Majors first surfaced. Tell me what happened next for you as a head writer.

You know, it's just: Try to keep it about the show. Let's do the best thing we can, here. There's so much, like—we just don't know about anything. So, OK, what can we do with our show? Let's just treat our show with respect, and you see what happens. It's a difficult situation all the way around.

Did you ever consider reshoots or editing the character out at any point in production?

You know, that's a larger studio conversation. For us, we were just focused on what we had and making that.

It does seem like everything was compiled and shot before his March arrest.

Yeah, no, we didn't do any reshoots for this season. There was no additional photography. So everything we shot, there in London, is what we see.

We see a small tease with the files—that the He Who Remains variants are running amok. Is it more likely that we see the character return in Loki, or somewhere else down the road? Or is that part of a larger studio conversation?

That is a decision that is made above my pay grade. They decide who's going to end up in what things.

On a macro level, where would you say Loki Season Two fits in within the overall Marvel story?

I actually don't know what the overall story is going to be. Things are so siloed off. I hope that we've been good teammates and created fertile ground for other things. The goal is to make it so good that the rest of the MCU comes to you. Obviously, I'd love to see all of our characters live on—OB and Ke certainly deserve to continue on. I'd be shocked if they didn't use them.

What would you say to the corner of fans and reviewers who have been critical of this season—and even the Marvel operation at large lately?

Thanks for watching? [Laughs.] No, I mean, I don't want to be ridiculous about that. Seriously, thanks for watching, and I hope they stuck with it. I think we had a challenging season with a lot going on. And I'm sure people at points got a little frustrated, like, Well, is this gonna lead to anything? But it always was.

That's the tough thing about Rotten Tomatoes, and people reviewing and weighing in on things that are in progress. Nobody's going out and reviewing a movie at the midpoint. It doesn't make any sense. You need to see the whole [season]. But I hope they stuck around, and I hope it landed for them. Ultimately, I'm just glad they watched.

That's a great point. Rotten Tomatoes does a Tomatometer for each episode, which is a different bar versus a binge release.

Yeah, for sure. I'm really happy. We had a weekly release. It's good for the industry. It's good for the viewers. It's good for the people making it. It makes what we do a little more precious, and it doesn't reduce it down to your weekend binge, and then you forget about it. It's good to live with these things, and to absorb them and fight about it. It makes it all more valuable.

With all the chatter lately about the state of the superhero genre, where do you see this type of storytelling going in the next five, 10, 15 years?

Does anybody know? I don't think anyone knows where Hollywood is going from year to year. I think we all have guesses. At the end of the day, it just comes down to making things that people want to see. And I haven't noticed less engagement, because my experience is all with Loki. I'm not sure with anything else, but I haven't seen any dip in enthusiasm. I've seen an increase. The fans of the show seemed like they've only gotten more excited about it. So, I don't know what to read. We can all kind of decipher that how we will. But I think we made a good show and people like it. At the end of the day, that's what it's about–you make something that's quality. You can connect with the audience, and the audience is going to connect with you.

What’s next for you?

I don't know. There are so many different paths. I'm super grateful to Marvel for this opportunity, because it was a huge door that was opened for me. I hope I did well by that opportunity, and that it will provide more opportunities.

My strike project was a novel about a family that wins the lottery, and it's just the worst thing that can happen to them. So I'm getting into editing my manuscript right now and hoping to go out with that next year. I just want to do good work, whatever form that's in. So I'm just looking out for quality. Is there a chance for something to be great? Can I work with people that I can learn from, that also care to make something great?

I love that mindset—especially during our current existential threat to the arts.

I don't care what anyone says, that S2 Loki finale indisputably proved that Loki (and by obvious extension Tom Hiddleston, as the only possible actor to play him so perfectly) is/was/and always will be THE best part of the entire MCU.

When I tell you I was sobbing by the end. The sheer selflessness, pathos, but also raw beauty of that moment... and the shaping of Yggdrasil. I'm still reeling. Pure art.

Just two Loki Variants, glam-rocking it for Halloween

Part of the legacy of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, aside from helping coin the phrase “superhero fatigue,” is its murderers’ row of actors. Say what you will about the MCU, but it has assembled an incredible range of talent since its inception. (That’s the power of IP money and Kevin Feige, huh?). With each project, starting with the Robert Downey Jr.-led Iron Man in 2008, Disney has collected global stars like Thanos amassing his precious Infinity Stones. Marvel has nabbed established names (Samuel L. Jackson, Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek), then-rising stars (Florence Pugh, Zendaya, Michael B. Jordan), rookie MVPs (Tom Holland, Iman Vellani), and returned beloved faces to the mix (Andrew Garfield, Tobey Maguire). But when it comes to a truly memorable performance over all this time in the MCU, Tom Hiddleston has everyone beat.

Hiddleston scored big with his role as Loki in 2011’s Thor. Since then he’s appeared in six additional films, two animated shorts, and two Disney+ shows, including, of course, Loki, which is in the midst of its second season. Loki the character is alive and well, even if the show’s latest episodes are convoluted. It’s getting increasingly difficult to keep up with Loki’s time travel, timelines, variants, and other complications. In a way, that issue is emblematic of the MCU’s current state. Now in its 15th year, it’s struggling to retain the same level of enthusiasm in a post-Avengers: Endgame world. Loki was a potential bright spot after an engaging, fresh first season in 2021. But now it’s in something of a sophomore slump. Thankfully, the series has two saving graces: stunning visuals and outstanding performances, none of which are more impressive than its lead’s.

Compared to other notable MCU actors, including commendable villainous turns from the likes of Jordan and Michael Keaton, Hiddleston obviously has the advantage of time. Across three Thor and three Avengers movies over 12 years, Loki Laufeyson isn’t the same God of Mischief we were introduced to way back when. Still, Hiddleston ensures, either with a deranged smirk or sly dialogue delivery, that remnants of the original character are still in there. But now, Loki is open to the possibility of redemption because he’s fighting to save the world, not to eliminate it entirely, as was his mission in The Avengers.

Loki has received the kind of nuanced and believable character development that’s rarely seen in the MCU (or any major superhero franchise, for that matter). Hiddleston deploys an impressive physical and emotional range, evolving Loki from a maniacal killer in The Avengers to an anti-hero in Thor: Ragnarok (where he’s aided by a comical partnership with co-star Chris Hemsworth) to a full-fledged sentimental hero in the new episodes of Loki. (Thankfully, his spiky hair and costumes have also made headway, although we do miss the Asgardian horned mask.)

Loki isn’t alone in his evolution from antagonist to protagonist on the small screen portion of the MCU. Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), and Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. The Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), have been on similar paths. They each got to unpack their traumas and flesh out their human side over a span of multiple episodes (in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier and WandaVision, respectively) instead of a mere two-hour film. In fact, WandaVision is arguably the best Disney+ Marvel series to date, elevated further by Olsen’s tremendous performance. 

‘He changed my life’: Tom Hiddleston, Rachel Weisz and more on Terence Davies

‘He grew in passion and tears welled in his eyes’ - Tom Hiddleston, The Deep Blue Sea, 2011

I have never met or worked with anyone like Terence. His mind was like a poet’s. He saw poetry everywhere: in the composition or movement of a shot; in a line reading; in the Shipping Forecast. He would often do his own rendition, in his unmistakably sonorous voice, with a twinkle in his eye: “Fair Isle / Cromarty / Forties … south-west veering west, five to seven … showers, moderate or good … with some fog banks.” Everyone laughed. Everyone loved it.

I remember once on set, while directing a scene between Rachel Weisz and I, between takes he suddenly started quoting a long passage from Little Gidding, the fourth of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets. As he recited the poem, completely by heart, he grew in passion and tears started to well in his eyes. It was almost as if Eliot’s poem was for him a key – or a chord – within which he wanted us to play the scene. The poem and his depth of feeling were our cue for the right territory and temperature. He created an atmosphere and our performances were to follow. He was a man of great passion and sensitivity.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Distant Voices, Still Lives. I never lived in the past he evoked or recreated, but I knew instinctively that it was totally authentic. It knocked me for six. Women and men singing – unaccompanied, often to accompany themselves, in joy or in pain – alone or in the pub, simply for the pleasure of singing. He was such a close, honest observer of his own childhood, and his past.

He wasn’t trying to be anyone else. He was just him. A rare, deep artist. We will miss him.