SAN DIEGO — Comic-Con is filled with fans dressed as Jedis, super villains, zombies, mutants and more. But here’s a philosophical question to ponder: if you’ve played a Marvel hero in several movies, does it count as cosplay?
Tom Hiddleston stormed the stage in character as Loki (take that, Andrew Garfield!) on Saturday during Marvel’s much-anticipated Hall H panel. The Asgardian god of mischief and adopted half-brother of Thor, set to return in November’s provided the appropriate amount of theatrical fanfare for the studio’s big announcements. (Sales of the story collection shot-up online following the announcement of the title).
MTV News caught-up with Hiddelston shortly after the panel wrapped. Unfortunately for us, he had already changed. “I should give this interview in costume,” he joked. “Actually, that would have been quite fun, twiddling my mustache, in costume. That would be so weird! With all the rig on. Can you imagine?”
It’s quite easy to imagine, actually, given the level of excellence the 32-year-old English actor brought to his performance at the panel. “It was a hoot! As my mum would say, it was ‘a hoot,'” he said of the experience. He said the plan was initially outlined to him by Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige, via phone call about two weeks ago.
“I was a bit blown away by it. But I was onboard from the get-go,” he explained. “It was just a question of fine-tuning it. It was really fun working with him on the details of what it should be. I really wanted to kind of not break character, and keep the integrity of the character, so it didn’t seem like I was sending myself up too much.”
Audiences will next get a chance to see “that character” in “Thor: The Dark World,” which picks up following the events of “The Avengers.” For those who didn’t contribute to “The Avengers” $1.5 billion box office haul, Loki was last seen being taken back to Asgard to pay for his crimes.
“It’s a new departure. I was very keen, after ‘The Avengers,’ to come back. [But] you never want to repeat yourself,” he said of the “Dark World” story arc for Loki. “You want to do new things. You want to go deeper. And sort of take twists and turns and surprise people [and] surprise myself. And that’s the fun thing about once you feel like a character really has roots, people know who he is, I know who he is, then I get to play.”
What sort of playfulness will we see from the god of mischief?
“I feel like we are really playing dice with this one,” he said. “There are whole new games that he plays. I know I always say it, but Loki, as the god of mischief, his reason for being is to stand at this liminal point between order and chaos.”
“Every time, [Loki] will push the envelope. He will try something on. He will do something for his own benefit and advantage,” Hiddleston continued. “He will test people. He will test himself. He will create wicked treachery wherever he goes,” he concluded. “So to just keep rolling the dice and find new ways of doing it is really fun.”
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