Tom Hiddleston Explains How 1998, Loki and Thor Paved the Way for ‘Pompeii: Out of Time’ (Exclusive)

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Tom Hiddleston laughs at the notion that his new National Geographic series, Pompeii: Out of Time, is the product of the same machinations that defined his signature character of Loki.

Marvel fans might recall that in the second episode of Marvel Studios’ Loki series, the then-God of Mischief and Mobius (Owen Wilson) time-traveled to Pompeii in 79 AD just moments before Mount Vesuvius’ volcanic eruption killed thousands of people across a half-dozen Roman towns and settlements.

Hiddleston did suggest the Pompeii scene to the Loki creative team at the time, but it was less about playing the long game and more about merging two of his longtime passions.

“It would be Loki-level strategy to concoct an entire series for Marvel Studios/Disney+ and then pitch a Pompeii sequence, only to later secure a series for National Geographic,” Hiddleston tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Pompeii: Out of Time’s July 22 release on Disney+ and Hulu.

The origin of Pompeii instead goes all the way back to 1998 when a 17-year-old Hiddleston and two friends took a trip to the Campania region of Italy. What began as fun in the sun with lots of pizza consumption soon turned into a life-changing experience for the British teenager. That’s when he visited the remnants of Pompeii and its neighboring city, Herculaneum, which have been excavated and preserved in astonishing detail. The site essentially serves as an archaeological memorial for Vesuvius’ victims. Hiddleston could see how they lived, but also how they died, as the remains of 100 Romans are still on display by way of plaster casts. “I felt the 2000 years between me and the inhabitants of Pompeii compress,” Hiddleston says.

When Hiddleston received an inquiry about developing a Nat Geo project, he went right to Pompeii, and the powers that be quickly warmed to the synergistic relationship between Loki and what is now its stablemate, Pompeii: Out of Time. “Everybody saw the fun in using Loki as a jumping-off point and a connecting of the dots,” says Hiddleston’s producing partner, Kevin R. Wright.

Hiddleston credits his formative tour of Pompeii for his interest in the ancient world, as well as his pursuit of acting. At the University of Cambridge, he degreed in Classics, which is shorthand for ancient Greek and Roman studies. His three-year program even included Latin courses, the primary tongue of Pompeii. Ahead of Loki, Hiddleston made a point to brush up on the classical language of ancient Rome so that Loki could futilely warn the Pompeians of the impending apocalyptic event.

The other domino that fell en route to Hiddleston executive producing Pompeii involved his fictional brother in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Chris Hemsworth has played Thor, the God of Thunder, in seven films opposite Hiddleston’s Loki, beginning with Kenneth Branagh’s 2011 film, Thor.

In 2022, Hemsworth launched his own Nat Geo series called Limitless in order to test the limits of his mind and body. Hiddleston was so impressed by the exploits of his friend from work that he can still recall specific details from the two-season series, such as Hemsworth swimming 250 yards in frigid Arctic waters or walking across a crane atop a 900-foot-high Sydney skyscraper. Additionally, Hiddleston was particularly moved by Hemsworth’s Nat Geo documentary, A Road Trip to Remember, in which he hits the road with his father Craig. Together, in response to the latter’s early-stage Alzheimer’s diagnosis, they revisit meaningful places to the Hemsworth family and reignite memories. (Writer-director Tom Barbor-Might worked on both Hiddleston and Hemsworth’s projects.)

“When National Geographic got in touch about making something in the non-fiction space, I definitely felt really encouraged by Chris’ experience,” Hiddleston says. “I could see that working in this way actually stretches you as a performer, and it became a thrilling expansion of my curiosity about different types of storytelling.”

Hiddleston knew he wanted to tell the story of Pompeii, but he needed to do so in an innovative way. Most of all, he strived for the audience to feel the same feeling he had during his first visit to Pompeii nearly 30 years ago. What resulted is one of the most unique docudramas to date. Hiddleston functions as the host and an “amateur classicist” who seeks to understand the fates of three real Romans during the 24-hour long eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Hiddleston relies on professors, scholars, archaeologists and psychologists to piece together what happened to a teenage blacksmith apprentice, a businesswoman/bathhouse proprietor and an unidentified Praetorian guard. In between Hiddleston’s present-day investigation, a cinematic dramatization tracks all three people’s unique experiences during the disaster that unleashed 100,000 times more thermal energy than the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. It goes to show that while mankind can be incredibly destructive, Mother Nature is a force not to be trifled with.

2,000 years from now, documentarians will probably be burdened by the overabundance of recorded information from our current era, leaving very little to the imagination. Conversely, there are moments throughout Pompeii where the trail goes cold due to insufficient documentation from 2,000 years ago, frustrating Hiddleston in the process. Thus, he employs an acting technique where he combines available evidence and imagination in order to form the most logical conclusions possible. Similar to the Loki series’ time mechanics, he’ll occasionally rewind and replay moments based on new data that redefines each character’s story.

To tell this ambitious story, Hiddleston called on his right-hand man from Loki, the aforementioned Wright. In 2018, the former U.S. Marine turned Marvel Studios executive approached Hiddleston with a 30-page pitch for a Loki-led spinoff series. The presentation contained many of the foundational pillars that would constitute the future crown jewel of Marvel’s offerings on Disney+. In the middle of wrapping their two-season series in 2023, Hiddleston realized it was his turn to pitch Wright. That’s when he proposed a production partnership known as Ithaca, a reference to the island home of the mythological Greek hero, Odysseus.

At a time when Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is hitting theaters, Hiddleston admits that the timing of Ithaca’s debut project is rather fortuitous, especially when Matt Damon, Nolan’s Odysseus, played a version of Hiddleston’s Loki in Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). “The [Odyssey] story I often reference is essentially about being careful at the finish line. On shoots, everyone gets excited near the finish,” Hiddleston says. “And I’ll be like, ‘Well, hang on, guys. We haven’t seen the shores of Ithaca yet. That’s why our company is called Ithaca.”

As for the future of the character who helped pave the way for Pompeii: Out of Time, Hiddleston will reprise the role of Loki in December’s Avengers: Doomsday. Considering how well Loki season two completed the now-God of Stories’ arc, it could’ve easily served as Hiddleston’s swan song in the MCU. But he assures fans that Loki’s evolution won’t be for naught. “Loki felt like a closure. And when Marvel called about Avengers: Doomsday, it was going to be starting from that end point,” Hiddleston shares. “So there was no sense of unstitching or undoing all of that development. That development still stands as a place to begin.”

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National Geographic’s Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston premieres July 22 on Disney+ and Hulu.