Hiddleston discusses ‘privilege’ of his latest role
To say Tom Hiddleston has played a range of characters is an understatement: There’s F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hank Williams, Loki and, in his latest film, a tracker in “Kong: Skull Island.” Dated Taylor Swift, to boot. That’s a full resume.
Hiddleston, 36, talked about “Kong” in the proper British accent that makes ordering pizza sound like a royal decree and a threat by Loki sound all the more menacing. No, we didn’t talk about Swift. In fact, once Hiddleston got going, mostly all there was to do was listen. Question: “Kong: Skull Island” looks like it was fun to do, depending on how much of the action you did yourself.
Answer: I did it all. Every single thing. Q: How’d that go?
A: I loved it. I loved the physical challenge of playing this character. He is a former British SAS Special Forces tracker, someone whose specific skill set is in the reconnaissance and recovery of lost soldiers, and in jungle survival. And I knew that part of representing those skills was acquiring a physical discipline that was greater than I had ever attempted. Some of that physical action was really thrilling. Q: Is it difficult?
A: Shooting action is like shooting dance sequences. It’s all choreographic, and actors have to work in concert with the camera team to make the most-exciting pictures, and that’s really thrilling. Q: You don’t want to be the one guy in a 75-member scene who steps the wrong way or throws the wrong punch.
A: It’s a craft that is endlessly perfectible. You’re always trying to make it the most exciting, the most polished, the most visually exciting, interesting spectacle. I never mind going take after take, because it means you get a chance to make it better. Q: For all that, my favorite scene is when your character, James Conrad, is shooting pool in the bar.
A: Yes! In a way that’s an introduction to the character that shows the audience his physical capabilities, and that he’s being hired to lead ground expeditions for a very good reason, which is because he knows his way around a sharp object. And that seemed liked a witty way of establishing that. And by the way, a really, really fun sequence to choreograph, and I worked with some amazing stuntmen to pull that off, as well. Q: He’s obviously confident and prepared, but he’s also pretty quiet. How do you play both?
A: I just trained with a former U.S. Navy SEAL and two former British Royal Marines. We got up every morning at 4 a.m. and they put me through my paces. There’s something to do with having that physical discipline which eventually rubs off on you. You know that you’re becoming more agile, more capable. That was how I did it. I now know I can do this stuff, and you feel less like a pretender. Q: What were the trainers like?
A: I trained with was a Navy SEAL and then he was a physics teacher. I loved that about him.
If you undergo military training like that, it’s not just physical training. It’s also a psychological and spiritual training. I think inside all that strength training there’s also a training in courage and humility, and arrogance has no place in that. There’s something in the film that raises the question about the nature of warfare and the bravery of soldiers, and what soldiers have to witness and apply themselves to, which I hope is very respectful. Soldiers have seen things which make arrogance impossible. Q: But your guy never seen anything like this.
A: That’s in a way the most-interesting aspect, is that when you meet Conrad at the pool table in Saigon at the beginning of the film, he seems like a man who’s seen it all. But of course he’s about to see something he’s never even really imagined — your favorite giant prehistoric ape. The journey he goes on, he becomes a pacifist, and a protector of that, which really appealed to me. Q: Is that why you took it?
A: Well at the time it was offered to me I’d never played an action hero. I love “King Kong” and I love that he’s a myth of movies that seems to represent the power and majesty of nature, that nature is essentially brutal and terrifying, but also beautiful and majestic, and people love him for that reason. He’s just a guy who wants to be left alone, and he doesn’t need the meddling of man to do his own thing. Really, it’s such a privilege to be in a Kong movie. They have an amazing legacy in cinema history, and the idea I could be in the next one was really exciting. Q: There are lots of reaction shots where you’re looking at a giant ape which is, obviously, not really there. Were you looking at a tennis ball or something?
A: Well actually, they couldn’t put a tennis ball high enough this time around. Brie Larson and I would pick a tall tree or a cloud in the sky or the peak of a mountain, and once we’d established the direction of our eye line with the cameraman, the rest of it is simply a commitment of the imagination. It is just like the muscle that you flex when you’re a child, and you’re playing a game in the attic, and suddenly the attic isn’t an attic at all, it’s a bunker and you’re having to defend it from whatever it is, the game you’re playing. That’s essentially the nature of acting, is that you’re imagining that you’re looking at something that isn’t there. Q: It seems like the most basic form of acting.
A: It is the most basic definition of acting, responding to an imagined stimulus, who happens to be in the shape of a 100-foot ape.