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Conversation with Tom Hiddleston - Nerd HQ
текст
Nerd HQ 2013 – Conversations for a Cause with Tom Hiddleston
Transcribed by @PerryKeetTweets
0:00
Zac: You’re welcome. I say this ‘cuz I want you all to know. I love that all of this comes together for a greater cause for Operation Smile. But it’s also, I’m running a business too, ya know. It’s not like I’m some saint, or whatever. I’m sellin’ [comical voice]“Hey hey! Buy a t-shirt.” But I thought it would be a fun way to sell a t-shirt. I felt like if you’re going to have a business, that I believe in conscientious capitalism. Or what I call conscientious capitalism. Go run a business, make money, take care of yourself. Do good in the world. And if you can give a buck at the same time. Win-win. That’s great.
[applause and cheering]
Zac continues: So I love you guys, and I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for supporting us at the Nerd Machine, thank you for coming to Nerd HQ. Thank you for, I hope that you enjoy the panels that we give you. Oh, and while I have this time… I saw some things on Twitter today. I don’t know how much of it was just a few dissenting voices, or if it was a lot of voices, or whatever. Essentially just so you guys know, I try to pack as much fun into one weekend as I can. That involves both fans and celebrities as well, right? So Thursday night is like y’alls dance party. I just want to throw a dance party for all of you. And then Friday night is for all the talent and the sponsors that give us money to make Nerd HQ. And Saturday night just turned into an impromptu, like my, my friends that I see maybe once a year at Comic-Con, I have a little party with them. And that I don’t want to shut down the rest of the venue, I want all of you to still be able to appreciate it. Some people on Twitter were like, “oh, you’re keeping us out of your party” and I’m like, “no, no, no, no.” So for whatever it’s worth, I just want you guys to know. Please don’t ever feel disenfranchized, don’t ever feel excluded, I try to do everything I can. I love you, I love you.
02:36
Oh you didn’t tell ‘em already? That’s your job. Haha.
[Introduces rules and Tom Hiddleston]
03:24
Tom: Hello everybody. Oh you’re all so pretty. You’re almost as loud as Hall H yesterday, I gotta say. Ok, louder! How’re you all doing? This is fun, it feels like there’s no teacher in the room. This is uh, I could just get settled in.
03:49
“Kneel!” I have to behave myself now. Oh no? Okay. So just basically the whole performance is Loki in all three films right here, live. No, no. Save it.
04:08
Zac: You’ve got questions. Who’s got a question? Who has a microphone?
04:12
Guest: Hi Tom. I was wondering what your favorite Shakespearean work is? And if you could give us a sample…
04:21
Tom: Wow. That is a really good question. Um. You know I feel like it changes, depending on how I’m feeling in any given moment. Oh god, this is hard. I have a very soft spot for Othello. I think as an arc, it’s kind of perfect. And um, the character Othello is so good, and the character Iago is so dark, there is an extraordinary energy between them. I was in a production of Othello myself, in London. But then there’s some of the speeches in King Leer are just heartbreaking.
05:18
And there is one line in Cymbeline. I was in a production of Cymbeline, in uh, let me find the year. 2007. And I played Posthumus and Cloten who’s the hero and the bad guy. It’s a sort of double act. The hero Posthumus is kind of separated from his heroine Imogen and they’re betrothed to be married for the course of the entire play. The story kinda goes on many twists and turns and mistaken identities, and uh, cross dressing… kind of a Shakespearean greatest hits. At the end of the play they’re reunited, and they’re both in disguise. Both Posthumus and Imogen think that the other is dead. And Posthumus strikes Imogen, because she’s dresses as a boy, just not recognizing her. In our production her hair fell down, and suddenly he saw her. She just hugs him. And Posthumus’s line is, “hang there like fruit, my soul, ‘til the tree die” which is beautiful, I think. And also I played Henry V, which is amazing. It’s an extraordinary play. And uh, I’m about to play Coriolanus, and so Coriolanus is in my head. That wasn’t a very good answer, was it? Like, that’s a lot of it.
07:00
Zac: That’s a great answer, I’ve just never felt more uncultured in my life. “Hi, I played a guy that worked at a BuyMore, uuuhhhhm”
07:10
Tom: I met, I had the great pleasure last night, drenched in my own sweat on the dance floor, of meeting Nathan Fillion. Yes I did. And I told him the truth, Cuz I’m a nerd about two things. And that’s tennis, and Shakespeare. He is Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing, he gives the best Dogberry I’ve ever seen.
07:41
Guest: Thank you so much for being here. One of the things I wanted to say was last year, someone gave a mini-speech about Zac and it was really sweet, and it had to do with how he’s so sincere to his fans, and we stick behind him because of that. Because he’s so nice and sweet, and he does everything he can for his fans. I just wanted to say that is how I feel about you, and that’s how everyone here feels about you, because you care so much about your fans. Thank you.
08:12
Tom: Thank you very much. Yeah, you guys are the best. 08:18
Guest: My question was, for someone who has wanted to act their entire life, what is the best advice you could give them?
08:29
Zac: No pressure.
08:32
Tom: Kenneth Branagh is a big mentor of mine., and um, he said something the other day. Somebody asked him a question., I think it’s a quote from Shakespeare, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is four words “Take Pains, Be Perfect.” I think it’s his way of saying, don’t be afraid of caring. When I started acting, I will never forget this. There was a guy above me, at drama school, who used to say, “When you have a big audition, for a part that you really want, uh you should go out and have a crazy night and then show up to your audition hungover and you’ll always get the part.” And uh, I tried that and it never worked! I would just be like, “uh, I just want to go to bed, I’m tired.” And um, and then I kind of changed. Well basically, I gave myself permission to care. Because there are a lot of people in this world who are afraid of caring. Or afraid of showing that they care because it’s uncool. It’s uncool to have passion. It’s so much easier to lose when you’ve shown everyone how much you don’t care if you win or lose. It’s much harder to lose when you show that you care. But you’ll never win, unless you also stand to lose. I’ve said it before, don’t be afraid of your passion. Like, just give it free reign, and be honest, and work hard, and it will all turn out just fine. And sing in the trailer, that’s what we did. [points at Zac]
10:27
Zac: Every morning when we were getting our hair and makeup done, we’d be blasting music. Or as loud as they would let us.
10:32
Tom: I think it was really obstructive for everyone else. Like when you’re doing these films, like Thor: The Dark World, and both of us, well we both have a hair color change first of all, and different degrees of face paint. And you’re due to shoot, like you’re needed on set at 7 in the morning. So we’re usually in the makeup chair at 5am. And um, people are moving a little slow, it’s 5 o’clock in the morning, it’s winter. The entire planet is still asleep, um, but we just tended to blast out everything from Elton John, to The Beatles, to…
11:18
Zac: Stevie Wonder.
11:20
Tom: Yeah, Stevie Wonder. And this man has a pair of pipes on him,
[cheering]
11:27
Zac: No. No singing! Next question. I love you.
11:32
Tom: I don’t know how to sit in this chair, like it’s so deep. I don’t know do I sit in the front, do I sit in the back? Has anyone else had this problem?
11:38
Zac: They do, we’re going to work on that for next year.
11:40
Tom: I just want to do this [put legs up on chair arm]
11:42
[cheering]
11:46
Tom: Sit on the side…
11:47
Zac: Some people have been doing that, actually.
11:48
Tom: I saw Joss do this the other day.
11:50
Zac: He just moves around. Joss is like
11:52
Tom: He’s like “Hi, I’m Joss Whedon”. I’m not going to do an impression of Joss.
12:02
Guest: Hi. Tom. First of all. There are a couple of friends of mine, scattered around here, and we’ve all come from Australia for our first ever Comic-Con. I wanted to thank everyone for making our first experience an amazing one. Tom and Zac, you’re both two of my biggest positive influences in life. And um, I wanted to know how you draw your positivity. How you get your positivity and how you try and drain out the bad, and where you draw it from
12:38
Tom: Here’s the thing. You only get one. Like this is it. Um, this is, uh. I think Shekinah [Zac’s sister] posted something on Twitter, about a month ago. It was in French, it was a French quote. It was “On a deux vies, le…” No no no, come on!
[cheering]
13:19
Tom continues: Listen, I’m from London. France is two hours on the train, for heaven’s sake. So the quote is, “On a deux vies, le seconde commence quand on realise qu’il y on a seulement une.” Which for those of you who understand that is, “we all have two lives. The second begins when you realize you only have one.” And so, I’m not wasting any time. And the thing is, with negativity, for my money, they are just, they are like clouds that pass across the sun. And um, they will pass, they’re just feelings. It’s important not to dwell on them. It’s just move passed it. Maybe it’s my nature. There is so much about life that’s amazing. And when you key into that, I don’t know it’s just a strange thing. I get excited about stuff, I can’t expalin it. And I try not to get bogged down in disappointment. Nobody has an easy ride, that‘s for sure. There’s not a single person in this room who’s had an easy ride. And it’s about to get harder, I’m sure. But it also gets better and uh, the point about going through those experiences is, you have to just go “it is what it is, it will pass” you have to just “this is amazing! I’m sitting in front of an empty baseball stadium, and what’s not to love about that!” And there’s 300 people in here who have all come to listen to me for some strange reason and that’s incredible. Yeah, when you tap into how amazing stuff is, it’s pretty cool.
[applause]
15:43
Tom continues: Actually sometimes, when I was at drama school. Drama school was really hard. They deliberately kind of overwork you. And they just throw everything at you. I was on a three year course at a drama school in London called RADA. The first year you’re sort of slightly showing your strengths and the second year they throw you everything you can’t do. All the things, you know, your weaknesses you’re to work on your weaknesses. What’s the point in working on your strengths? You’re working 16 hour days and you’re exhausted and you’re drained, and I kind of lost the love of it. I lost my mojo. Uh, true. And I remember going, I live near a couple of parks in London. One night I couldn’t sleep, it was the summer, really early in the morning and I walked to this big hill and I saw the sun rising over London, which is one of the greatest cities in the world. And sometimes like that’s the answer. Just get up when the sun gest up and look around, and you’ll realize you’re part of an amazing planet. That’s what I do.
17:11 Zac: Yeah.
17:19
Guest: Hello. I wanted to first start by saying thank you for coming today and in particular for helping raise money for Operation Smile. And I wanted to.
17:30
Zac: $6K, $6K, just this panel, six thousand dollars.
[applause]
17:43
Guest: And I wanted to ask what charities or causes are you passionate about that you might want to share with your fans.
17:49
Tom: Well, some of you may know this. I’m sort of a junior ambassador for UNICEF in London. I was invited to go and see their work in the field in West Africa in Guinea at the beginning of January this year. They are extraordinary as an organization. They are one of the world’s leading charities for children, and women and children actually. The closer you get to the problems that children all over the world endure.
The same problems are really the mother’s problems, as much as the child’s problems. They believe very strongly that every child deserves a clean break. And no child deserves a disadvanaged start. I’ts their mission to elevate every single child’s chances of a good life. And I’ve seen their work first hand. I’ve seen them in London, I see what they do, and they are extraordinarily dedicated in a very real wway. When I was in West Africa, all of the things I’ve done today are not possible. I got up in the morning and I opened a bottle of water. Not possible. I slept on a bed with clean sheets, unlikely. I put on clothes that have been washed in the washing machine, not possible. When you go to these places, you realize we live in extraordinary privelege. UNICEF are commited to helping babies get inocculated against disease. Helping mothers to know how to breast feed. Helping make sure they have acces to clean water to drink. Helping them to have sustainable agriculture. Helping so many things. Combating terrible FGM that’s all over the continent. I’m very proud to stand with them in that fight.
20:37
Guest: Hi Tom. First I have a question and a request, is it alreight if I make a request? I painted an image of you for a class assignemnet, and I was wondering if there’s any way if you could sign it at some point. Does anyone have a sharpie?
[Tom signs it, compliments the art]
21:19
Tom: I remember when this photograph was taken. I was trying to get new head shots, and I felt like I was pulling terrible faces. SO I looked away for a second and I said “hang on hang on hang on. Let me just relax for a bit.” So I was just looking out the window, and she got me.
21:38
Guest: Ok, my question is. Now that you’re…
21:40
Tom: What’s your name darling?
Guest: Kate.
Tom: Do you want me to put your name on it?
Guest: Yeah, sure. Yes. Thank you so much. Um… can I ask my question?
Zac: Of course you can.
Guest: My question is, more recently, I guess not as recently now. But more recently you’ve been doing more national worldwide commercial stuff, but yet you’re still doing Coriolanus and um smaller venue things as well. How do you balalnce working in that really big commercial world doing Thor and other movies, with the smaller things that you’re doing like Shakespeare.
22:22
Tom: It’s all the same. For me. It’s the same job. Acting is, an actor job is the job of teling the truth in an imaginary situation. And when I’m playing Loki, when I’m playing Henry V, when I’m playing any of the other characters I’m playing. Coriolanus, or um, I could reel off the list if you’d like. You know like Captain Nichols in War Horse, or F. Scott Fitzgerald, thank you. Or most recently a character called Adam in Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive. You know what we’re engaged in is trying to distill and to distill whatever aspect of the human condition is appropriate for the story and present it, because I’ve always thought of acting as an extra-dimensional kind of anthropology. By which I mean we’re in the business of people. People interst me. What movitvateds them, what inspres them. What makes them happy, what makes them sad. And we’re all united by it. We’re all united by these feelings that we all feel at different times. And the reason I became an actor is because I sat in the audience of the cinema and audiences at the theater. And I love it when you go into see somedthing. And you enter as an individual and you leave as a group. Because you’ve all been bound together by tht same expreinfe. So really I don’t
distinguish between what’s commercial and what’s small. I never see any of the money anyways. My only satisfaction comes from whether it rings true and if it doesn’t then I’m disappointed and if it does then I’m really happy. So I hope I never make a distinction in a way. Of course you have to modulate the tone about certan things. But yeah basically it’s all the same. Cool.
25:10
Tom: I still don’t know how to sit in this chair, like. What am I doing?. Oh no! I was dancing too late. It’s his [Zac’s] fault.
25:18
Guest: Hi. My name is Travis and my friend Ruby couldn’t be here today. She tweets as @HiddlesEducates. And she said if I asked you this question she’d donate to Operation Smile on behalf of me and her. And the question is, do you have any suggestions for a Spirit Day, for your Hiddlestoner community?
25:40
Tom: A “Spirit Day”? Hmmm, God. I still find it when you say the word “Hiddlestoner”, I find it a little strange. It sounds like an ancient and punitive ritual. Like “you’re all going to get stoned.” Like at the beginning of Life of Brian. “Stone him! Stone him!” I don’t know. I guess whatever you guys think is appropriate. I mean, I’m so flattered that you’d even want to do that. Um, what do you think? Suggestions. From the audience. Shout out, the loudest wins.
[suggestions from audience]
Acts of Good Will.
Paying it Forward.
Paying it Forward Dressed as Shakespeare.
Zac: I think we have a winner.
[applause]
26:57
Tom: Does that mean that everyone has to dress like a bald pate, and a little sort of goatee…
Zac: As actual Shakespeare, I thought you meant a character from his works, of which I’ve read all of them, I’ve read all of Shakespeare, I’ve performed all of Shakespeare I just didn’t want to talk about it. [points] Yes, you in the blue.
27:17
Guest: Hi. First of all, let me apologize for my gravel voice, I’ve been at Comic-Con so I, I can’t speak really.
Tom: It’s kind of hot, actually.
[loud cheering]
Guest: You shouldn’t say that to me.
[laughing and cheering]
Tom: Here we go.
Guest: Alright so I asked Joss Whedon this question yesterday, and he didn’t have an answer. SO my question is, between Thor and Avengers, we see a really dark change in Loki. I was wondering what you think happened to him between those movies. What got him to that point?
Tom: Joss didn’t tell you?
Guest: He said it was a backstory he hadn’t thought of yet.
Tom: Well, he’s being too modest. WE kind of talked about this idea, cuz at the end of Thor, you see Loki disappear through a kind of wormhole in space and time. And we imagine that Loki basically kind of goes through the seventh circle of hell in a way. He’s out, he’s cut loose. He just gets lost in the wrong districts of the universe. You know like the dark alleyways, the backstreets. And the people he meets are not kind. And he’s really having to survive on his wits. And also with this kind of reservoir of pain based on the events of that film. Really we kind of established that there’s this terrible, almost year long journey that he goes on through as it were the jngles of the universe and it is deeply scaring. And it hardens him. It’s kind of the like Asgardian version of Apocalypse now. He goes down that river and it gets pretty wild. But it was really important that he was stronger and more dangerous, and less, you know, he had a tougher exterior. So that’s what happened. I mean, use your imagination.
30:05 Guest: Hi.
30:08
Tom: Hello. Love your t-shirt.
Guest: Thank you! So this isn’t exactly a question of of fulfilling a dream, okay.
[laughter]
30:19
Zac: Keep it classy…
Guest: Ok, when I was 19 I had my third book published. I kind of used you as an inspiration for one my main characters in the book. So this is me kind of just saying thank you for just being you so that I could use you as that character.
Zac: Excellent.
Tom: Thank you very much. What does he do in the book?
Guest: He’s an anthropology professor in college.
Tom: Solid. Ok. Does he wear glasses?
Guest: Uh, yes he does. Yup.
Tom: Oh, I should fix that.
Guest: It’s called Dreams. By Katie Charles is what I write under.
Tom: Thank you, that’s really kind of you. Thank you very much. Is he also called Indiana Jones, by any chance?
[laughter]
Guest: Bond, actually.
Tom: Bond? I’ll take it.
[applause]
31:28
Guest: Hey Tom. First I just wanted to say that this is our first-
Tom: Are you a writer by any chance?
Guest: No, this is for Nathan (Fillion) earlier.
Tom: Oh, Nathan…
Guest: WE’re here for you too. We just wanted to say thank you, this is our first Nerd HQ, we’ve never felt so welcomed. Everybody’s been great. Zac, thank you.
Tom: Everyone is great.
[applause]
Guest: So my question is kind of like two-fold. One, were you aware of Agent Phil Coulson’s following prior to you reading the sсript of the second Avengers? And if you were, what was going through your head when you read that part?
Tom: Listen, when I read the Avengers, I had to stop and make myself a cup of tea, I was so excited. Every single page was a new, kind of… I mean, it was the most amazing role. I was a little bit aware of it. I actually had a huge… you probably don’t remember it. Or maybe you do. There’s a moment in Kenneth Branagh’s Thor, where Thor has been captured by S.H.I.E.L.D. they found Mjilnor there is the desert. And Clark Gregg who is Agent Coulsen is kind of grinning, at Thor, and he’s like [impersonating American accent] “Who are you?”
[applause]
Tom continues [American accent]: “you made my men… look like a pair of minimum wage mall cops…that’s hurtful.” And basically he walks out of the trailer and there’s a reflective door, a reflective screen. From where the camera angle is standing, you see Clark walk out the door and then he closes the door behind him, and I’m standing there. He and I to make that shot work had to do this incredible kind of two-step dance. Because it was old school, no special effects. I had to hop into place and he had to tap me. Sort of give me a hand signal before he did it. We had huge fun with that. Then when I read the scene where I killed him. I thought “this is gonna be fun”. Clark is amazing, he is such a good guy. It took us a while to get it right. In the story it’s a very key moment, because it stops the Avengers from kind of bickering and bands them together. They’re just a disparate group of egos at that point, and the death of Coulson makes them become a team, and they need someone’s death to avenge. And then I realized he had loads of fan… but he’s alive and well, and he’s doing S.H.I.E.L.D. so it’s all good!
[applause]
34:49
Guest: Hello. I’d really like to ask, as a huge fan of comics, if the previous incarnations of Loki, either the comics or the Norse god, influenced your own characterization of him.
Tom: Absolutely, yes. When I first got cast, it seems like I got cast a century ago now, I was cast in April of 2009. I read all of the runs of the original comics. Jack Kirby’s illustrations. J Michael Straczynski. Robert Rodi, and I’m suddenly drawing a blank on…I forgot someone in the middle. I can’t remember his name. And the Norse myths. Actually I remember an amazing car ride I had from the west coast of LA,
from Santa Monica to Pasadena or something, I was going to the valley. And I had The Ring Cycle on a cd in my car stereo cuz Loki turns up in Wagner. “Loge”, and he’s the god of fire. I just basically read everything I could, and stole all the bits that I thought were the fun bits. But then also there was this other side of it, which Kenneth Branagh and I really wanted to highlight, which is this younger brother. The damaged, lost, kind of sad, injured, betrayed second son of Asgard who is always going to be the black sheep. It became a kind of cocktail. What I tend to do when I work, it’s as if I have a huge well, or a bucket or something. I kind of circle around it and I throw things in which I think are useful: books, songs, pieces of music, newspaper clippings, interviews, and I kind of think about it. Then once I’ve got this enormous well of research, I kind of move in, and paper the walls of it, and just live there a bit. Once I’ve done that it’s like you plan, and you know, and then you forget, and you do. That’s always the kind of mantra. Plan it, know it. Forget it, do it. That’s what I did.
[applause]
37:21
Guest: Hello. My name’s Jas. This panel pretty much kicks off a pretty awesome weekend. I wanted to know, you’ve kind of answered my previous question. But I wanted to know if you could travel back to any time period in history, where would you travel back to and why?
Tom: Wow… hmm… I’m always asked this question, and I never quite know what I’m going to say. I’d love to travel back to Ancient Greece. Because you know-
[cheers]
Tom continues: Great! Enthusiasm for Ancient Greece. We’re so used to the idea of this, our modern sense of Classicism, you know everything is marble, kind of white, and has this sort of shiny, marble quality to it. But actually all of those palaces and temples in Ancient Greece were painted. They were painted so many different colors, they were as colorful as Marvel Comics. I’d love to have seen Ancient Greece in technicolor as it really was. I was in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. I had a taste of what the 20’s in Paris might have been like. And the more I read about it, they lived the high life, that’s for sure. I think the 20’s and 30’s were an amazing time. But you know what, his film is all about this. It’s all about what “Golden Age Thinking” is what they call it. Which is an idea that there was a better time before now. Like now is kind of “meh”, it was better before. People say it now like, “uh, you missed the 60s” or “the 70s is where it was at”. Or you know, whatever. People are always harking back to an age in the past which they thought was better. Nonsense. The time is now. And we should celebrate that.
[applause]
39:45
Zac: I feel like a lot of people skip over the 90s. The 90s don’t get a lot of love.
[cheering]
Zac: The 80s on the other hand.
Tom: I guarantee you that in about 40 years time, like, you know 20 year-old kids will be like “man the 80s look so crazy. So much leather, and terrible music, and hair, and makeup…
[gasping]
Zac: “Terrible music in the 80s??”
gasping
Tom: Amazing music.
Zac: See how easy that was? That was so easy.
Tom: Duran Duran, Yes.
40:27 Guest: Hi.
Tom: Hi.
Guest: So um, I don’t have any great art, or adeep question. Two things: one day I would love to get your signature on this book.
Tom: Got it. Do it now?
Guest: If you’d like.
Tom: I’ve got a pen right here.
Guest: Can I pass it down?
Zac: Go ahead and pass it down. Pass it down, to the-or all the way down the audience, that’s fine.
[laughter]
Guest continues: I’m thinking maybe the last page, or something?
Zac: hint hint.
Guest: I think that one, don’t you? I think that’s appropriate. Thanks. Um,
Zac: Oh, is that you with the moustaches? That’s awesome. [to guest] And do you have a question?
Guest: The question is, speaking for myself, I’d really like to see you do an adventurer, or a swash buckler. So my question is, if you were given three scripts, by three directors with whom you’d like to work, for a remake of Scaramouche or The Scarlet Pimpernel, or Captain Blood, which one would you pick and why?
Tom: Oh…um… The Scarlet Pimpernel has always been, of the three, I mean, they’re all amazing. I’d love to do it at some point. The thing is, I’ve kind of been so busy playing Loki, I haven’t done anything else. Yeah, The Scarlet Pimpernel’s got a kind of mystery, and uh, he’s, I love the mystery in it, and the kind of romance of the character. H seems to have a lot of style. What, you want me to pick a director?
[Guest clarifies]
Tom: Probably The Scarlet Pimpernel. I don’t know why. I just have an image of, I don’t know, a stupid image of like, I don’t know why I have an image of him sliding down some stairs. I’d like to do that.
42:42
Guest: Hello Tom.
Tom: Hi.
Guest: Hi. Thank you for Hall H, it was amazing. My question is, obviously you love doing impressions. My favorite being Chris Evans, as you know.
Tom [imitating Chris Evans]: “Oh my god, oh god. Oh man. Ooooohkay. Wow Zac. Nerd HQ man. Pretty rockin”
[laughter, applause, cheers]
Tom continues: I love Chris, he’s such a cool guy. I actually saw him backstage last night. After I came off stage from Hall H, he was right there. And it was so funny. He was wearing a t-shirt and a cardigan, like a human being, he wasn’t wearing his costume like I was, and he was just like [imitates] “Dude, really?? I was watching on TV man, I mean what? Oh my gosh… so cool”
Guest: I was wondering if while you were filming for The Dark World, firstly if you could do an impression of Zac-
[cheering]
Guest continues: And secondly, did you help Zac improve his English accent?
Tom: Didn’t need it. Didn’t need a single bit of help from me.
Zac: Thank you, Tom.
[laugher]
Tom: No he swung in like Errol Flynn, it was amazing.
[cheering]
Zac: Don’t think you’re the first to think of that one [audience comment about Tom Hiddleston being like Errol Flynn].
Tom: How can I do an impression of you?
Zac: You would sound incredibly sexy and intelligent, first of all.
[cheers]
Zac continues: No, no, don’t… don’t, don’t…
Tom [imitating Zac]: Well, you would sound incredibly sexy and intelligent, first of all.
[loud cheering]
Tom continues [as Zac]: No, no don’t… keep it coming. This is The Nerd HQ. Yes I did.
Zac: Ok… next question… that’s amazing. Now, seriously, next question.
45:32
Guest: Hi Tom.
Tom: I should read them that text message you sent me last week.
[cheering]
Zac: Which one was that?
Tom: The one [imitating Zac], the one about coming to Comic Con.
Zac: Oh yeah… what did I saw in it?
Tom: You were like, uh, it was like… I got a text message from Zac on Tuesday. This is a highly, like the whole Hall H thing yesterday was so secret I really couldn’t tell anybody. And I was sort of like, I really wanted to come here and talk to you guys, but I didn’t know how to tell Zac that I was coming without…
Zac: Oh, that text.
Tom: Yeah, that text. Can I read that text?
Zac: Sure.
Tom: I have it on memory, I rang him straight back. Hang on I’ve got to get this back. It was like [imitating Zac] “Hiddleston… I have an inkling that you are coming on a top-secret mission to Comic-Con. If you do not swing by Nerd HQ, I will personally punch you in the d*ck”
[loud cheering]
Tom continues [imitating Zac]: You have been warned. [resumes] So it’s really thrilling not to have a punched d*ck.
[laughter]
47:17
Tom: Sorry, darling. You had a question.
Guest: Well first of all I can speak for all of us when I say I’m really glad you came to Nerd HQ.
Tom: Me too.
Guest: Ok, I’m fine. I was wondering. What’s your process for choosing next projects? Like if you have like a bunch of scripts come across your desk, what makes you say “yes that is where I want to go next” and if your perspective has changed at all since your success in the Marvel Universe.
Tom: It’s so hard to put my finger on what it is. It’s just a gut feeling. I think I always trust my gut. It’s all I have. Even when I’m working, and you’re thinking about the shape of a scene, and how it should be played, and your head can get in the way and you’ve got to trust your gut. It’s just if I’m inspired, if my curiosity is peaked, I want to chase this possibility down that I see in front of me on my desk. Some of you may have heard me say this before and I always, I’m embarrassed to say, I always speak in metaphors. I don’t know how to speak in any other way. For me, acting is kind of like playing the piano. If the piano is the human condition, we all have every single note on that 88-key board, within us. And for me every role, I want to be able to play every note. And sometimes if a character, or a story seems to stretch me in some way, seems to offer up an experience that is new, that is a different chord or a different tune, that is real and true and human, and accessible. And no matter how joyous or loving or warm or how dark or painful. If it seems like an interesting shape to inhabit, I know if I’m running towards it already. Especially if you find you’re reading it fast, and you can’t stop reading it, and you’re turning the pages. Or you know if you’re 20 pages in and you’re like “uh, I’m going to have a biscuit over here” or something else or “I’m going to clean the house” then you know you don’t want to do it.
49:49
Tom continues: So it’s never a specific one thing, it’s just, does this thing grab me. And then the second question is, am I going to be allowed? You know there's a sort of, I think a myth in the business that we all have everything to choose from, because we don’t. I know I’m not on the top of everybody’s list. You have to earn that place. Like Matt Damon always used to say every sсript he got, he knew it had Brad Pitt’s fingertips all over it. Mine just happen to be Michael Fassbenders, that’s ok.
[laughing]
Tom: No listen, he’s amazing, he’s an amazing actor. Really truly gifted. And that was kind of a joke. Every actor is completely different. But you know sometimes you might read something and think, I have read things and gone this is amazing and I’ve chased it down, and I’ve knocked on the door, and people have said “No, it’s not you, Tom. We’re thinking of someone different” And then my job is to keep knocking on the door and say “Let me see if I can change your mind.” But yeah, what was the second bit of the question?
Guest: Only had one.
Tom: That was it. Okay.
51:14
Guest: Hi, my name’s Jonnifer, and I’m from Cleveland. I hope your time in Cleveland was good.
Tom: I had the best time in Cleveland, yeah.
Guest: You have a lot of fans there.
Tom: Thank you.
Guest: I just have to say this, because I have the opportunity to say it. “Kneel.”
[laughter, cheering]
Guest: Thank you so much. My question is, you’ve worked with a lot of great people. I’m curious to know how it was working with Tilda Swinton. And is there anyone you haven’t worked with yet that you really want to work with?
Tom: Second question first, so many! I get inspired every time I go to the movies or go to the theater. Um, I don’t even know where to start. And the more people, if I were to make a list, next week there would be ten new names that weren’t on the list. Gosh, yeah. I honestly couldn’t… there are filmmakers I’ve admired all my life. Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Clint Eastwood, Christopher Nolan, The Cohen Brothers, Michael Haneke, Jacques Audiard, Benh Zeitlin who directed the monumental Beasts of the Southern Wild last year. There are filmmakers doing such amazing work all the time. I should be so lucky really. I’ve been lucky enough. I’ve worked with some of my heros already. I’ve worked with Steven Spielberg and Woody Allen, Kenneth Branagh and Joss Whedon. I mean, like. That was in the space of like two years, I’m like, if I died tomorrow, I’d be happy…. What was that? I have no intention but it’s a good thought though. You think “would I be happy if I died tomorrow?” Actually, recently, this comes back to your question, I saw an amazing video on Youtube, and it was about this young guy who was told he had a terminal illness, he had about 100 days to live, and it was incurable. He basically spent the 100 days, the last 100 days of his life being amazing. And he did all the things that he had always wanted to do. And it seemed like he was more alive in those 100 days than the rest of us, because he knew that it was all going to end. And it made me think, well it is all going to end, so I’d better get on with it. That’s the very galvanized thing. Do what you love, and what was the first part of your question? Sorry I forgot.
54:19
Tom continues: Oh yes, Tilda! Tilda is amazing. How do I sum up Tilda Swinton? She’s not possible to sum up. She defies categorization. She is incredibly warm, and really brilliantly intelligent. And sharp, and kind. She’s very very kind. And she’s lived an extraordinary life. She’s broken so many rules that were imposed upon her by other people and she’s amazingly wise. It’s actually just astonishing. She’s got it, whatever “it” is that we were talking about. She knows that life is short, and it’s for living. She was huge fun actually. We shot Only Lovers Left Alive this time last year in Detroit, Tangier, and Cologne, and we just had such fun. We were kind of doing night shoots and I remember… she, I remember one day we both had the kind of hair and makeup situation, and one day she just passed me her phone and said “watch this.”
And it was “Gagnam Style” She was onto it way before everybody else. And she’s a riot. And she’s amazing in the film too.
Zac: Next question. Oh yeah, clap. Clap if you wanna…
[applause]
55:50
Guest: Hi Tom.
Tom: Hi.
Guest: I’m Darcy. @HiddlesNinjas on Twitter. You have Ninjas. You do, in your army.
Tom: Okay.
Zac: There are so many subgroups of Hiddle, I can’t even…
Guest: But you have to have Ninjas.
Zac: Doesn’t everybody? Please. Your question, ma’am.
Guest: I have, it’s a quick two-part question, if that’s okay. My first part is, I’m just curious, you memorize so many lines and I can’t even remember someone’s first name. Just curious what you use to remember so much text. And the second part… I saw a video on the internet of you doing an impression of a Velociraptor…
[laughter]
Guest continues: …but it’s kind of hard to hear. So… I was hoping you might do that.
Tom: Uhhhmm… okay first question. Learning. Learning is the legwork. Anyone knows who has been in anything, a play or film. Like that’s our job, we have to get these words into our head. I can’t sit down, literally I can’t sit down and read something and just learn it by wrote. I have to be on the move, so I tend to just like, I’m the deranged guy in London, walking around, pretending he’s on the phone, but actually I’m like speaking in iambic pentameter cuz I’m learning Shakespeare. And it’s literally just repetition, repetition, repetition. You kind of drill it into yourself. It’s like learning, I always say that you have to know the text as well as you know Happy Birthday. Like if someone asks you to sign a jazzy version of Happy Birthday, you’d know, because you know how Happy Birthday goes. Or if they ask you to do it like Beethoven, you’d be able to do that. And it has to be in your body with as much kind of confidence as that. It’s just repetition, really. Um, or you just watch Jurassic Park 18 times. And uh… I feel like we’ve got a full stage here, maybe I should just go for it.
[loud cheering]
Tom: I’m going to regret this.
Zac: Welcome to Nerd HQ.
Tom: [goes to the door, comes back out] I need the microphone. This is gonna be really challenging.
[Tom Hiddleston is impersonating a Velociraptor. I have no more words.]