A strict diet for six months? That IS a Thor point
Tom Hiddleston played the bad guy all the time when he was a kid. 'Me, my sisters and my cousins would put these plays on at the end of the summer and I would always be Captain Hook,' Tom told me.
Such background will come in handy when he plays the daddy of baddies, Loki, the arch-nemesis of Thor, the Norse thunder god.
Kenneth Branagh will direct Thor, which has a budget of at least $150 million (probably more) for the Marvel Comic people, with Chris Hemsworth in the title role and Tom as Thor's evil half-brother Loki.
Tom Hiddleston: Getting ready to look like a god
Tom initially auditioned and then screen-tested to play Thor. But Branagh, who knows him well from the Wallander TV detective dramas and from when they shared the stage in the Donmar's Ivanov at Wyndham's, decided his talent would be better harnessed playing Loki.
Often, the villain of the piece has the best lines. Look at what Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger did with the Joker, and what fun Alan Rickman had baiting Bruce Willis in Die Hard.
'Loki's like a comic book version of Edmund in King Lear, but nastier,' Tom observed.
How much nastier? 'Well, Loki's skilled in black magic and scorcery. He's a shape-shifter and has all sorts of super powers from the dark arts. He can turn clouds into dragons, things like that.'
Between now and January, when Thor begins shooting, Tom has to keep himself fit and healthy.
'Ken wants Loki to have a lean and hungry look, like Cassius in Julius Caesar. Physically, he can't be posing as Thor.'
Before then, he will shoot more Wallander films, but right now he's about to go before the cameras in the Cranford Christmas special opposite Judi Dench. Jonathan Pryce will play his father, while Jodie Whittaker plays the lass his character (William Buxton) desires.
By the way, one of the toughest things about Thor will be to get the Shakespeare-meets-Dr-Who dialect from the comic books ('Let foes beware! We strike for earth - and the realm eternal!') to work on the big screen.
It certainly helps explain why actors such as Tom have been cast: they can speak proper, you know?
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