MODERATOR: Thank you. Please welcome Kat Dennings, everybody. We have Anthony Hopkins next. We have Chris Hemsworth coming in. We have Tom Hiddleston also coming in after Chris. We have Idris Elba next. And we have Jamie Alexander next.
TOM HIDDLESTON: Just for the record, that’s Idris and I’m Tom.
[LAUGHTER]
JAMIE ALEXANDER: And this is Jamie.
MODERATOR: Okay, first question.
INTERVIEWER: For Tom. Apparently, we heard from the last panel that you one, thought you were the hero of the movie; and two, that you wanted to be Thor. Could you talk a little about that?
TOM HIDDLESTON: [LAUGHTER] Well, I think there are no villains in this world - there are just misunderstood heroes. And -
[LAUGHTER]
TOM HIDDLESTON: And - Loki definitely - I think Loki thinks he is the hero. There’s an aspect of Loki that is, essentially, that if you boil this film down to its barest elements, it’s about a father and two sons. And both those sons are two brothers competing for the love and affection and pride of their father, Odin, played by Tony here. And I think there’s just sort of a deeply misguided intention within Loki. And he has a kind of a damage within him. And he just goes about getting that pride in the wrong way. I didn’t actually want to be Thor [LAUGHTER], but my hair is in all sorts of trouble at the moment. I was born with very blonde, curly hair - not unlike Gene Wilder in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”.
[LAUGHTER]
TOM HIDDLESTON: And so - and I’m 6’2”. So like every other English speaking actor over 6 foot who’s got blonde hair, I went up for the part of Thor. And - but I’m not built like a house.
[LAUGHTER]
TOM HIDDLESTON: Like the man to my right. And there’s no way in Odin’s Asgard I could have delivered what Chris has done. It was always meant to be this way, I think. And so yeah, I’m - I think we’re much happier as things are.
INTERVIEWER: All right, Chris, well, this is a movie about a hero. What kind of hero do you think we need today? And also, if you have a favorite movie hero, I’d like to know.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: Good question. You know, I mean, growing up, you know, my parents were my heroes, you know, and my dad, in the way they conducted their lives.
[LAUGHTER]
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: And - and Tom. You know, and, you know, my dad works in child protection. And you know, he’s spent, he’s many, many years in that line of work. And you know, we, as kids, our experiences shape our opinions on ourselves, and the world around us, and you know - they - that’s who we become as adults, because of that experience. And you know, he - so yeah, he’s certainly been, you know, my hero. I, you know, in movies, I think the idea of a heightened reality and then the fantasy that we’re able to be swept up in, and then these larger than life heroes and the possibility of someone much more powerful than we are; and then - and greater, that can come and, you know, save the day, so to speak, is inspiring. And it’s the people who put themselves on the line, you know, and sacrifice their own safety for the greater good and for others. And I think anyone in any sort of profession who, their concern is the welfare of other people instead of individual, I think that is inspiring and important.
INTERVIEWER: Do you have any, like, favorite characters, like [SOUNDS LIKE] Thor or whatever?
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: [LAUGHTER] Yeah. I mean, growing up, ah - [INDISCERNIBLE] I have a lot of different films. And I think Superman was probably the very first one I was aware of, and you know, I would run around the house pretending to be him, at some stage when I was a kid. I also had a Robin costume, Batman’s sidekick, which is -
[LAUGHTER]
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: - a nice pair of green underwear and a yellow shirt and red cape.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Extra large.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: [LAUGHTER]
[LAUGHTER]
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: Well, it was pretty - it was - I was about six or seven; it wasn’t - I was pretty small. Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah. [LAUGHTER] But I love Hans Solo, too.
INTERVIEWER: Chris, could you talk about the most miserable things you did to actually get that kind of physique?
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: [LAUGHTER]
INTERVIEWER: And do you know how to spell Mjolnir? I’m pronouncing it probably wrong.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: Mjolnir - ah, good question. M-L-J-O-I-N-E-R? Is that right? Who’s gonna correct me?
[LAUGHTER]
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: Is it even a word? Yeah, the most uncomfortable thing was the eating. I didn’t mind so much the working out; I’d never really lifted weights to that capacity beforehand, and - and it was certainly a whole new sort of education, for a good six months. But the - I just don’t naturally sit at that weight, so I had to force feed myself with, you know, 20 chicken breasts and rice and steak - and all very boring to the plain things. And that was the most exhausting part, I think, out of the whole film, actually was the eating. It wasn’t the fun stuff, either. It wasn’t hamburgers and pizza and what have you.
INTERVIEWER: For Sir Anthony Hopkins. What drew you to be a part of this, essentially a comic book movie? Was it working - given the chance to work with Kenneth Branagh, or was it the material itself?
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Ken Branagh. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
INTERVIEWER: Just barely.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: It’s Ken Branagh, basically, I - I took a bunch - if they gave me enough money to read the phone book, I’d do it.
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: See, well, I live in a total state of non-expectation, and I don’t expect things; and I have - I keep my expectations very low about everything, as - especially the last few years. And I came, had come back from a movie with Woody Allen, which was a big surprise - I enjoyed that. And then I had an agent and I left them, because I wasn’t very happy. And I got a new agent and they - within two days they said, “Would you like to meet Ken Branagh?” and I said, “Yeah. What about?” He said, “Odin.” I said, “Oh, that’s a god, isn’t it?” He says, “Yeah.”
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Funny thing was, I hadn’t seen Ken for some years, and I - I wasn’t sure how he would respond to me, because I was one of the bad boys who ran away from England many years ago, and I came out to Cuckoo Land, you know, out here, because I never fitted into British theater and all that. So I wasn’t sure how [LAUGHTER] he’d receive me. But we met at the Breakfast [SOUNDS LIKE] down in Santa Monica. And he was very pleasant and friendly, and we had a chat about old times and all that. And he said, “Would you like to play Odin?” I said, “Yeah, okay.” He gave me the script and I read it. And I thought, “Yeah, I’d love to work with him,” because he’s - I’ve always been a fan of Ken’s, actually, because he’s - I’d never - I’d never read - I’m not a geek, you know, but this - [SOUNDS LIKE] wake up to Marvel when I was a kid and [SOUNDS LIKE] that’s all. But it turned out that it was the most enjoyable film I’ve - I’ve been involved in for a long time, principally because of the cast here, and Chris and Tom and everyone. And - and - Ken. I think I’d gone through a patch where I was getting very indifferent to everything, you know, and I could care less about anything. And then to work with Ken, he just pushed the right buttons to get me to give of my best. And I really value that in him, because I’d gotten lazy. And he - he’s one of the best directors I’ve worked with and - so that was the principle reason. And I - hey, I wanted the work. Gotta pay the rent, you know.
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: And I thought this was a nice part. Didn’t have to do too much. The only thing was, I wish I’d gone down to New Mexico, and I’d - because I had such a good time in the studios. My - my time was so brief. I think I was only on it about three weeks, on those great sets and everything. And then, you know, no acting required. I wrote in my script, “NAR” - no acting required, let the armor act for me, you know, on the sets.
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: So I let the armor do it for it, and the beard, and that was about it, you know. And showed up and put on my voice and that was about it. But I really enjoyed it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: [SOUNDS LIKE] Next.
INTERVIEWER: For Chris - with the physical demands of the role aside, how did you as an actor approach the mighty role of Thor? Did you look into the six hundred-plus issues of the comics, or did you pay more attention to the mythology, like the actual Norse mythology, or did you find a way to combine both? What was important to you, when taking on this role?
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: Yeah, I mean, I started with the comic books; and, you know, but I didn’t read all - however many of them - there are thousands of them, 40 or 50 years’ worth. But I certainly read enough to get a sense of who he was and the world he was from. And then I read some things on Norse mythology and this sort of fatalistic view they have that everything’s preordained and that leads the Vikings into this fearless sort of attitude in battle and with their lives. And they certainly back their opinions, I think. And they’re not swayed easy. And - and Thor is - that spoke volumes to me about the character. But then it was, you know, you sort of, you fill your head with whatever information and research you have. But on set, it was just about making it truthful and finding a way, a simpler way that I could relate to it - instead of thinking, “How do I play a powerful god?” it became about, as Tom said, you know, scenes between fathers and sons and brothers. And you personalize that, and that helps ground the story, I think, for an audience. And then we can relate to it and hopefully an audience can, too.
INTERVIEWER: For Kat. Your - Kat?
KAT DENNINGS: Umm?
INTERVIEWER: Oh.
KAT DENNINGS: I’m right here.
[LAUGHTER]
INTERVIEWER: Your character held the largest comedic role throughout the film. How was that, in such a serious - or how did you enjoy it in such a serious superhero film?
KAT DENNINGS: Well, I didn’t really have - that’s the thing. I saw the film like a week ago, and I hadn’t seen any of the Asgard stuff. And I was - it’s - when - I know when you got to our parts in Santa Fe, it was just - you felt like you were on a different film.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
KAT DENNINGS: It’s a totally different thing. So it didn’t feel like, “Oh, I feel like I don’t belong anywhere.” It just, it kind of felt like he didn’t belong.
[LAUGHTER]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: And that, that was what was funny, yeah. Yeah.
KAT DENNINGS: Yeah, which is why it’s hilarious. Yeah, and I - Natalie and I have been friends for years anyway. So it was actually pretty easy. We just hung out and goofed off and were girls; and poor Stellan had to listen to us talk about, like boys and nail polish and -
[LAUGHTER]
KAT DENNINGS: Yeah, so it was - it was pretty easy. Sorry. [LAUGHTER]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: [WHISPERING] It was really easy.
INTERVIEWER: For the actors who played as Guardians - was it more challenging or more fun to wrap your mouth and your mind around the film’s mock heroic middle English? And as a follow-up for Mr. Elba, how much of a pleasure was it to not have to do a fake American accent?
[LAUGHTER]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: [LAUGHTER] Oh, my gosh. I had a good time. I don’t know - it was fun learning the accent and training for the film and goofing off with these buttheads to my right. Yeah, we all trained together, prior to shooting. And you know, it made for a good time.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: Yeah, I think, you know, one of the challenges for the script and the story and now the audience is that, you know, you have these two huge worlds, but they’re equally as well thought out, well written. And you know, we’re - Kenneth, he wanted us to all have a sort of uniform sound, if you like - you know what I mean? And even though, you do say mock English, but it was - it was set in that world, but exactly not English, which is what I was told. And yeah, fake American accents? [PH] Whaa, whaa, whaa.
[LAUGHTER]
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: Try some Asgard, you know what I mean?
[LAUGHTER]
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: [INDISCERNIBLE]
INTERVIEWER: Sir Tony had mentioned kind of facetiously that the costume really kind of, you know, does the work for you. But I’m just wondering for the other actors that were in, you know, kind of elaborate costumes and the eye gear and things - and you’ve had - an incredible costume - what, how does that inform your character, in terms of creating and becoming that person? Or is it just, you’re pretending?
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: [INDISCERNIBLE]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: Who wants to go first with this one?
TOM HIDDLESTON: The costumes are - I mean, they are incredibly heavy, and I’ve - it’s like kind of - if you got up in the morning and you wear a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and some flip-flops, it’s kind of a signal that you might be going to the beach. And if you get up in the morning and you wear a breast plate and a back plate -
[LAUGHTER]
TOM HIDDLESTON: And a cape, and a pair of golden Satanic horns on your head, it’s - it’s quite clear that you’re doing something else.
[LAUGHTER]
TOM HIDDLESTON: And also, we were so helped by, you know, not just the costumes, but by the beautiful sets built by Beau Welch, the production designer. And you know, there’s - you’ve got no furniture to lean on, really, and no, sort of, props to busy your performance. So it - there has to be a kind of simplicity, too. The costumes make you stand straighter. And when you’re in big - it’s like being in a neo-classical museum, and if you go up to the Getty, you have a sense of the size of the place, and that does - that just does stuff to the way you stand.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: Yeah. I mean, with Kenneth, one of my biggest notes, one of his biggest notes for me was - just let the costume do it, you know, because you know, I had this huge helmet on my head and couldn’t hardly see [INDISCERNIBLE]. And Kenneth would just say, “Don’t worry. Just - just live in it, you know, and you know, just stay as still as you can and just, you know, let the costume and the opulence,” of where I was - my bridge, which is beautiful - do the work. And you know, it sort of - and the script, of course.
TOM HIDDLESTON: Yeah. Um-hmm.
INTERVIEWER: So Tony, did you get to pick your [INDISCERNIBLE]?
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Sorry?
INTERVIEWER: Did you get to pick your [INDISCERNIBLE]?
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Yeah, it’s an interesting - no, I can’t remember.
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: They put it on the wrong eye, first of all. And I said, “I think you made this for the wrong I.” And they said - because it wouldn’t fit in. And I said - they said, “Yeah, we did.” But they had another [INDISCERNIBLE] put in that eye. The only problem - the only problem with that, was I was - moments of anxiety because I had no three dimensional vision.
INTERVIEWER: Ah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: So going - I felt like an old - well, I’m not that young anymore; but -
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: To - to be guided onto the set, I felt very embarrassed, you know. “This way.” Yeah - because I couldn’t see. So - I mean it was m--- but no, it was - the thing would come off very quickly. But it was - it was a costume and [SOUNDS LIKE] it helped and all that. And you - you don’t have to do too much, except speak up, I guess.
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: But you don’t have to act. It’s like John Wayne said, “When you’re in the desert, he doesn’t have to act; you let the desert do it for you.”
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: But I think those guys, those movie actors of that time, you know, they knew what they were doing, you know. They just got on their horses and they did it and they were wonderful. So I take a page out of their copy book and try not to do too much. But Ken challenges you all the time, in a - in a very nice, gentlemanly, charming way. I like the way he says, “My learned, esteemed colleague, I would like you to stand here.”
[LAUGHTER]
TOM HIDDLESTON: Yeah. Yeah. [LAUGHTER] Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: But it seemed like at the end, I said - he said, “Ah, my esteemed colleague, Mr. Hopkins,” and he’s very cunning. He said, “I’d like you to stand here. And then Chris will come up behind you.” He said, “Do you have any suggestions?” I said, “Yeah, but I’m not gonna tell them to you because you want me to stand here, don’t you?”
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: He said, “Yes.” “So you just tell me where to stand and I’ll do it.”
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: See, and you know with something like that, he knows so much. And that’s the most comforting thing. You don’t have to - you don’t have to work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: You know, you just do what he tells you. And I know that sounds pretty wimpy to do that, but - why not? He knows what he wants.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: A good director knows what he wants, and what it’s gonna look like. And you know - [SOUNDS LIKE] good.
INTERVIEWER: Sir Tony - first of all, I appreciated your reference to Captain Marvel, because there are a few of us around who - a dwindling number of us -
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Billy Batson.
INTERVIEWER: - remembering Billy Batson.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Yeah, Billy Batson.
INTERVIEWER: And then radio station WHIZ and all of that. But much has been made of Kenneth Branagh comments about how Shakespearean he saw the mythology -
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: And the story. Your experience with Shakespeare goes back to the RADA days and through Titus.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Um-hmm.
INTERVIEWER: Do you see that - is that putting - is that putting too much weight onto what’s essentially a comic book story?
ANTHONY HOPKINS: No, I don’t, I don’t think so. I - I don’t trouble my little brain with that stuff, because I don’t think about too much anything, anyway, when I go on a film set, because you can analyze and analyze, and I leave that to the guys, you know - the boss, the director. They decide what it’s gonna be like, and you know, you just follow. I’m not trying to demean my role in it, but you follow certain guidelines, and “This is what he wants,” if you’re working with a director - like Spielberg or Clint Eastwood or Ken Branagh or whoever, or Scorsese - you follow the guidelines of what their style is. And he mentioned Shakespeare quite a lot and he - we referred, in the readings beforehand - we had about a week’s readings down in Manhattan Beach.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: We talked, not extensively, but a bit about the good old Westerns, you know - “Shane”, one of my favorite all time Westerns, you know - when the bad guys come in and they have a conference and they try to negotiate. And Jack Palance, you know, looks innocent and all that. And - and to have that sort of feeling of big, the father, the autocratic father and the troublesome sons. There’s a wonderful film called “Law Man” - which Ken and I talked about, with Burt Lancaster - a great movie about rival factions. You know, there’s the father, played by Lee J. Cobb, and all these bad sons he’s got. And there’s always one long - one son who’s a little in the middle, not quite sure where he belongs. So we have those points of reference - on the horse when I meet, I don’t know if it’s in the film [INDISCERNIBLE] I meet my enemy and I say, “Let’s talk about this. We don’t need any bloodshed.” That was taken from an idea of a - of a Western negotiation, you know. So I - I love those points of reference because I was a fan of all those early Western movies, Gary Cooper and all those guys, yeah.
INTERVIEWER: Mis--
ANTHONY HOPKINS: But Shakespeare, you know, yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
INTERVIEWER: Mr. Hopkins, in the back here, I so appreciate your candor. When you were first asked about working with Mr. Branagh, you said, “I was lazy, and Ken pushed my buttons.”
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: What buttons did he push, and did he know you were lazy?
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Well -
INTERVIEWER: What was going on?
ANTHONY HOPKINS: We - we’ve - no, we’re not - maybe I’m overstating it. But we’d come from the background. I mean, I’m 20 years older than Ken, and I didn’t know him that well. But we knew, we had all the same reference points of the theater. We knew about the actors we’d been working with over the years. And we were both pretty rebellious, and I know he was. I was rebellious in the fact that I was a bad boy. I escaped from England and the group theater, and came over to America to Disneyland, you know. And that’s - I - I know - I sold out - I sold out; I was - it’s nice. I’m glad I’ve sold out. So -
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: So I wasn’t sure how he’d respond to me. But he - he’s just as bad as I am, you know. He’s a rebel, and - but he - he’s challenged himself over the years. And, you know, he did some extraordinary things 30 years ago when he was taking on people like Lawrence Olivier, you know, doing Hamlet and Henry the Fifth, Much Ado About Nothing - a colossal background. And his education is pretty profound. So I - I read a lot, but I’m - I hate taxing my mind with analysis. I’m not a good analyst. I cannot talk about acting. I hate talking about it. I hate talking about analyzing. They [SOUNDS LIKE] always say, “Let’s talk about the…” Why?
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: I mean, I’ve sat in conferences where you just fall asleep because it’s so boring. I don’t know, you just get up and do it.
[LAUGHTER]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: You know, the - get up and do the damned thing, instead of talking about it. And Ken is like that. He just says, “Do it.” And I like that. But I - I get too much the other way, of being Mr. Cool, you know, not analyzing at all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: [CHUCKLING]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Just walk blindly on the set. And I think what Ken does is just say, “Come on, you can do more than that,” because I’d like to just be a little restrained. And he said, “No, let’s push it even more.” And it was a welcome invitation. So that’s - that’s basically my story.
INTERVIEWER: Tom -
TOM HIDDLESTON: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: We were talking about this. It’s - Loki’s such a great villain because he is so relatable and dimensional, and you don’t really know if he’s right or if he’s wrong, or what he’s feeling or thinking. So when you guys were crafting this, was it with a trajectory towards the Avengers, and are we gonna continue to see Loki as that kind of a character in the Avengers, or is it gonna be a little more diametrical?
TOM HIDDLESTON: Well, really, I just - I took the character for - that I saw in the comics. I mean, he is a - Loki is a master of magic. And he is, in the Marvel universe, he is the agent of chaos. And really, his superpower is his intelligence, if you like, and his - he’s a shape shifter; and it’s his ability to stay ten steps ahead of everybody else. And - so absolutely, Ken and Chris and Tony and I all talked about - about having those layers in a way that he’s someone with a fierce intelligence, but also a very damaged heart. And I would have to - I’m not sure - I think a red dot will form on my forehead if I give any more information about Loki and the Avengers.
[LAUGHTER]
TOM HIDDLESTON: All I can tell you is that Loki will be in the Avengers. And it’ll take more than the man to my right to stop me this time.
[LAUGHTER]
INTERVIEWER: This is for Chris and for Tom, also, regarding the Avengers. You guys play very larger than life roles in this film. You’re going into a movie with four or five other larger than life characters. So what’s the biggest challenge if you - that you guys see, in combining all these archetypal heroes and villains into this one film?
TOM HIDDLESTON: I think the - the sort of the thing that looks like a challenge is actually the reason it’ll work, as in how, you know, how can one movie contain so many - so many different flavors and colors and characters. And I think - I think Joss Whedon has probably made that his strength. And the conflict between each of them will be something that will be expanded on, I think. Would you say?
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: Yeah, sure. Also, I mean, it’s - we don’t balance all the other characters, I guess. That’s just the writer and Joss Whedon, with - who’s the writer - director - his job is to sort of navigate that. And kind of like Tony was saying, you know, we come in and do our bit. And that’s sort of all you can really, you know, concern yourself with. But I definitely think it’ll be an interesting combination. And as Tom said, why it will work is that conflict in those larger than life characters and egos clashing, I think it’ll - there’ll be some great tension there.
INTERVIEWER: This is for the panel. Since we now know that Tom secretly wants to be Thor, is there another character in the Marvel canon that anybody would like to take on?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: Oh, I have one - X-23. Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: I heard that. Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: Anyone else?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Loki.
[LAUGHTER]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Keep the - yeah, the horn in the family. The horns are all yours, Man. Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: I think I’d like a stab at Luke Cage at some point.
SEVERAL UNIDENTIFIED: Um-hmm, yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Tony?
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Like, I - what - what - my one regret was that I didn’t go to New Mexico. And I think I was gonna, about to suggest to Ken that I could play Odin’s twin brother -
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Who actually goes down and is a sort of Fifth Columnist movement on the -
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: So I wanted to be in the - in the New Mexico [INDISCERNIBLE]. No, I’m very happy, having done Odin. I don’t know, if I come back to another one; I don’t know what the seq-- if there’s a talk of that. But I’d love to another one. It’s a - you know, it was so unexpected to be in a movie like this. And I like the unexpected. And you know, living in a state of total non-expectation, it’s just a surprise what happens to you, you know - all kinds of things come your way. It’s when you have expectations, that’s when it’s always disappointing. So to be in this was just a - a bonus, it was the gravy train, you know, for me, because I’ve - I’ve been around a long, long time now. And so whatever comes along, I’m very happy to do it, you know, if it’s a good script and a good director and good actors. So I’m just very fortunate to mosey along and do what I do. But I mustn’t get too lazy. I need another Ken Branagh. Because I don’t - it’s very hard to find a director of that kind of power, you know. And gentleness. He’s a gentleman. And that’s it.
INTERVIEWER: Kat, do you have one?
KAT DENNINGS: I don’t know. It’d be cool to see Darcy become something else, or to go up to Asgard, that’d be pretty amazing.
[LAUGHTER]
KAT DENNINGS: Yeah, but it’s like - it’s like you guys say, that I - I don’t want to have expect-- I didn’t have expectations going - I, I got this role and then got to read the script. I didn’t read the script before I got this. So I didn’t now who Darcy was, and Darcy’s not in the comics, so - she became bigger through the rehearsals. So I just - I’m just thrilled that she’s still in it. I can’t believe I didn’t get cut.
[LAUGHTER]
INTERVIEWER: For Chris and Tom, could you talk a little bit about the dynamic between yourselves as actors, vying for the attention of Sir Anthony Hopkins, as well as the brotherly dynamic that went from brotherhood to rivalry, and so much as to the bloody nose one of you received on set from said rivalry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Sure.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: I nearly caught Tom talking about having breakfast with Tony at one point. And I said, “What? He’s having breakfast and I’m not?”
[LAUGHTER]
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: And it was [INDISCERNIBLE]. And - but no, but - we - you know, Tony, actually you said it, that it’s much easier to, I think, [SOUNDS LIKE] height someone on screen if you actually like them off screen. It’s just -
TOM HIDDLESTON: Yeah.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: - a more enjoyable ride. And this is nothing sort of personal about it. And you know, we just - we got along and came into this at the same point in our careers, with the same sort of enthusiasm, you know, and love for these types of films. And just had a great time doing it. Yeah, and you either have chemistry with someone, or you don’t. And thankfully, I think it was there, and so to play brothers was, it was easy and fun.
TOM HIDDLESTON: It’s quite literally a [SOUNDS LIKE] bromax.
[LAUGHTER]
TOM HIDDLESTON: Right, it’s the bro - the bro aspect of the word is for real. But it, Chris is absolutely right. It’s much, I mean, I can’t imagine having to go to sort of the emotional extremity that we both have to go to if I - if we actually didn’t like each other. It’d be just horrendous to go to work. And I think, you know, the fact that we get along makes it kind of like - we just egg each other on - and you know - between takes, we would just say, you know - I don’t know, maybe we’d like raise each other’s game or something. And we just had a really, really good time. And also, there are so many things that went wrong, that were just accidents that make you laugh. And it’s such a huge journey. We both spent two years of our lives working on this film, and it’s so nice that there’s somebody else who’s kind of alongside. Like Chris had a few drinks at the wrap party, and was like hanging out the window on the way back to the hotel, saying -
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: That’s not true.
[LAUGHTER]
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: You’re ruining my career right there.
TOM HIDDLESTON: Sorry.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: [INDISCERNIBLE] saying it.
TOM HIDDLESTON: And he said to me before we went up to our rooms, he was like, “You’re the only one who understands me.”
[LAUGHTER]
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: I have no idea what I was talking about. Yeah.
TOM HIDDLESTON: But in terms of vying for the attention of Tony, I - Tony was amazing. And I haven’t actually said this on record, but when, whenever - our days working with Tony, he would just regale us with stories of when he was a young actor and starting out in “The Lion in Winter” with Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn. I’ll never forget that story you told about Katherine Hepburn saying, “Stop acting, Tony. You’ve got a good face; you’ve got a good voice. You’ve got a good body. Stop acting.”
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: She said, “May I talk to your mama?” And I said, “Yeah.” She says, “Don’t act; you don’t need to act. Watch Spencer Tracy.” I said, “Oh, okay.”
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: It was good advice. But she was a - she was good. Yeah.
TOM HIDDLESTON: And actually, then, then we did the scene in the vault, where Loki finds the sort of, the big, dark secret of his, of his personal history. And I think after the first couple of takes, [CHUCKLING] Tony leaned across and said, “Have you got a good agent?” And I said, I said, “Yes, I - I think - I think so.” And he said, “You’re going to need it.”
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Obviously, I love to have a laugh.
TOM HIDDLESTON: Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: I like to tease people.
TOM HIDDLESTON: Yeah, so -
ANTHONY HOPKINS: No, no -
[LAUGHTER]
TOM HIDDLESTON: I remember, actually -
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Ken, Ken is part of that, as well. I said, “Is he gonna play it like that?” He said, “Yeah.”
TOM HIDDLESTON: Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
TOM HIDDLESTON: That’s - after [INDISCERNIBLE] [OVERLAPPING]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: He said, “That’s all the young actors.” “Is that the way you’re gonna play it? It’s your career.”
[LAUGHTER]
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: I remember that, being on set with Tom, our first day with, with Tony. And, and going through the rehearsal, and Tony giving us that reaction. “Is that how you’re gonna do it?” And going -
TOM HIDDLESTON: Yeah.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: “He’s kidding, right?”
[LAUGHTER]
TOM HIDDLESTON: Yeah. Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: It would be terrible if you had met somebody who didn’t have a sense of humor.
TOM HIDDLESTON: Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: You could [INDISCERNIBLE] now.
TOM HIDDLESTON: But then there was something he said, when we were walking down towards the casket and I said - and he said, “Can I tell you something, Tom?” And I went, “Absolutely. Say it up straight. Tell me, tell me anything.” And he said, “You’re doing this very strange thing with your wrists.”
[LAUGHTER]
TOM HIDDLESTON: “Oh, my god, what am I doing?” And he said, “You - you’re just - it looks a little bit camp.”
[LAUGHTER]
TOM HIDDLESTON: “Maybe you can butch it up a bit.”
[LAUGHTER]
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: And he said, “Isn’t he, Chris, don’t you think?”
[LAUGHTER]
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: It’s a bit of [INDISCERNIBLE].
ANTHONY HOPKINS: I remember [INDISCERNIBLE] this story briefly. My first film was “Lion in Winter” and we had a couple of sound engineers. And I was a new actor, and there were there of us and we were three new actors on the block, you know. And this guy called Tom [PH] Buchanan, he was the sound engineer, he - he walked behind me once with his sound mixer; he said, “I hate actors.”
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: And [INDISCERNIBLE] But he did it to tease us, you know, just to - just to -
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yeah. Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: He’d be sitting there with the headphones on, and I’d be doing a scene. And he’d go, “What?”
[LAUGHTER]
ANTHONY HOPKINS: That humor gets you, sort of up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Because you have to have humor. Because if you don’t have humor and you take yourself seriously, you’re dead in the water, you know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: Um-hmm.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: So you have to be jostled. And I love it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: You - you’ve got to have a laugh.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: Because it’s better than working for a living.
[LAUGHTER]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: It is, yeah. It is. Absolutely.
ANTHONY HOPKINS: It is, isn’t it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Absolutely. That’s the big thing I learned from Tony, was have a good time doing it, you know. And the appreciation for it and having fun. You know, what should have been the most intimidating experience walking in, was the most enjoyable. So -
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Thank you.
MODERATOR: All right. Thank you, everybody, for your time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Take care.
[APPLAUSE]
[END AUDIO]
INTERVIEWER: Kevin Feige?
KEVIN FEIGE: Hello.
INTERVIEWER: Kenneth Branagh?
KENNETH BRANAGH: Yes, hi [INDISCERNIBLE].
INTERVIEWER: [OVERLAPPING] Zack Stentz and Ashley Miller.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, it’s the red and blue, what’s--
KENNETH BRANAGH: Good morning.
CROWD: Good morning, morning.
KENNETH BRANAGH: Hi.
INTERVIEWER: And if it’s all right, can everybody introduce themselves on the mic, so the recorders pick up, please?
We’ll start with you.
ASHLEY MILLER: Hi, I’m Ashley Miller.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: [INDISCERNIBLE]
ZACK STENTZ: I’m Zack Stentz.
KENNETH BRANAGH: I’m--I’m Ken Branagh.
KEVIN FEIGE: Kevin Feige.
DON PAYNE Don Payne.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, and the first question.
INTERVIEWER: Mr. Branagh, when the news was announced that you were directing the film there was some discussion that you felt like perhaps a less likely choice. I’m wondering if during filming you ever felt like a less likely choice to direct [SOUNDS LIKE] your film.
KENNETH BRANAGH: [LAUGHS] The scale of the undertaking couldn’t help but make you feel occasionally that--you know, it was--it was very, very challenging, but that was part of what was attractive. And people sometimes ask me, “Well how did you--how did you do it?” And I say, “Have you seen the credits at the end, there’s seven minutes of ‘em. You see all of those names?
That’s how I did it.” This is how I did it, I’m surrounded--four lads here who were, you know, crucial to it. And frankly when you walked on Day One and there are frost giants and there’s green screen and there’s real mist and rain and there are six principals in their new costumes for the first time and all of that and four camera crews and hundreds of people, frankly these are the kinds of people you go and squeeze and say, “What do I do next?” [LAUGHTER]
In fact, I’ll tell you this is what Kevin, Day One--I think Day One and I feel in your office in Beverly Hills I said, “So what should I do first, you know, the first day at school. Should I go to visual effects? Should I go to Three-D, all the places I don’t know? And actually you said--I don’t know if you remember this but you said, “The one thing you need to do right now and until it’s finished is cast Thor. That’s it, just cast Thor.” And that--the--every time I watch the movie and I see Tad Asano later in the movie responding to a bit of the story and he goes, [WHISPERS] We must find Thor! We must find Thor!” And I remember that was Day One, “Find Thor!” [LAUGHTER] So we did.
INTERVIEWER: Hi Kenneth, what inspired you to cast Tadanobu Asano while you can, you know, cast a Asian-American or a British-American--I mean, an Asian British actor instead?
KENNETH BRANAGH: Well, you might like to talk about that to Kevin, but I had just seen the--you know, about the history of the character in the comics. I saw Tad in Mongol and I just thought, “Amazing actor.”
KEVIN FEIGE: That’s all it was; we were a fan of his work. And he’d recently, I think got a U.S. agent and was interested in doing U.S. films and we were excited to have him.
INTERVIEWER: This is now the fourth film in the Marvel cannon line I suppose, but for this film did you feel limited in any way or because it was the first story for this character was that--did that--did you feel free?
KENNETH BRANAGH: Me?
INTERVIEWER: [SOUNDS LIKE] Oh, yeah.
KENNETH BRANAGH: The--absolutely, because also the--Kevin and the rest of my colleagues at Marvel were sort of completely--and to me invisibly--being the architects of the larger universe. And I always felt whether it was simply because that’s all I was capable of, and I feel as though that’s true, that Thor and Thor for one film is all--this is all I have to do is try. And boy, that’s enough, is how do you introduce this character? And then the process by which, you know, it may affect other things. For my money, and I’m not just saying it because he’s sitting here, but it was [STUMBLES] smooth, and it was--also as a viewer I am intrigued by the interweaving of the way things happen in the Marvel universe. And so I was so excited by the opportunities to maybe some--relate to that in some way with there. But it’s actually, you know, it’s a collaboration partnership. We talk, you do it, the [PH] freedom-smeedom at all really doesn’t come into it, you’re just making a film.
INTERVIEWER: Kenneth, do you think that your experience in other effects movies like Potter for example, as an actor did that give you more--make you a little bit more comfortable in terms of now that you’re making this big effects laden film yourself as a director?
KENNETH BRANAGH: Yes, although, you know, my experience was that the sort of--the quality of the technology changes. The advances in the technology change so much that it’s really always on a daily basis is advancing. So I did the Harry Potter quite some time ago and as brilliant as they are I think Marvel, you know, are on the sort of cutting edge of things, so I’m pleased to say so. The whole of the process from Day One through to the end was an expanding possibility with visual effects. So it was a bit of preparation, but frankly it was new opportunities every day.
INTERVIEWER: Hi, question to Kenneth, you know, how challenging for you to direct the movie based on the comics compared with the Shakespeare film? You know, which one is harder?
KENNETH BRANAGH: Ah, it’s the scale thing, you know, that is tricky. But I mean, why don’t you speak a little to--just because, you know, I’m inside out. Just the--what the Marvel sort of--and your position on how difficult it was to go from comics to the screen with this particular character, maybe?
KEVIN FEIGE: Well, all the characters have their own challenges of course; Thor, being a particular challenge because he’s from another world. We haven’t done a--we don’t have a Superman type character who is from other worlds. You know, in our cosmic-side of the universe we do, but in terms of the primary characters that we have Thor is unique in that regard. He also is unique in that he is based in part on Norse mythology, so you have, you know, sort of a big melting pot of a lot of different ideas, which 45 plus years ago Stan Lee and Jack Kirby put together into our great sort of mythology. And now we’re 600 plus issues into it now and we sat with 600 issues and said, “What story do we tell?” And frankly the writers had a big challenge and we’ve been working on the movie for many years and there were a lot of different incarnations. So I won’t--sort of trial and error, but figuring out we’re gonna introduce the story that starts on Earth, present day, take the viewer to--and just basically throw ‘em into these other worlds--and then bring them back to Earth. So we have a little bit of an idea of where Thor is from and why he’s reacting the way he is was probably structurally the biggest challenge.
INTERVIEWER: And for Kenneth did you find this--it’s very Shakespearian in a way, this family. Did all of your work with Shakespeare help you with that, and also wondered is there an origin story where he finds the mallet and he becomes Thor for the first time? And I wonder why you--‘cause I don’t know the comic books--why you didn’t maybe choose to do that?
KENNETH BRANAGH: Well, to answer the first one the--you know, we’d just seen about two billion people watch a royal family at work, you know? And so I would say that it is Shakespearian, but just--it’s global I suppose. That we’re interested in what goes on in the corridors of power whether it’s the White House or whether it’s Buckingham Palace or... And so Shakespeare was interested in the lives of, you know, the medieval royal families, but he also raided the Roman myths and the Greek myths for the same purpose. And I think Stan Lee went to the myths that Shakespeare hadn’t used. You know, all of them recognizing that they contain briefly told, very condensed stories of--that I think are very universal in their application. I think the connection, if there is one, is that the stakes are high. So in something like Henry the IVth or Henry the Vth where the young prince--how a reckless man falling into bad company, could that prince be the king? Is he the right man for the job, is that kind of story. Our flawed hero who must earn the right to be king, is in our piece, but I think what’s key is the stakes. There it’s Europe and England in power and here it’s the universe. It’s when that family has problems everybody else is affected, so it is--it’s like, you know, if Thor throws a fit and is yelling at his father and is banished, I mean suddenly it’s--the world is--the worlds are unstable. And what it means is if the actors take those stakes seriously it is passionate and it is, you know, very intense. And I suppose that kind of a observation of ordinary human--although they’re gods--frailties’ in people in positions of power is an obsession of great story tellers including Shakespeare and including the Marvel universe.
INTERVIEWER: For the writers, it seems like there are few adaptations more daunting than five decades of material as well as mythology that’s thousands of years old. Where do you begin to pull the story together?
ASHLEY MILLER: Terror. [LAUGHTER] No, honestly the first place you start is with Kevin and with Ken and getting a sense of the story that they want to tell. And if the story that they want to tell is about the god king who is cast down to earth and has to learn humility before he can return home, that’s the story. You figure out what that structure is and more importantly you figure out who the human being is. It helps, you know, speaking for myself and Zack and I’m sure Don it--huge comic book fans--you have that informing the things that you do and the things that you say and you write about. But it’s the first rule that you apply to any other writing effort, you find the person in the middle of the story, you figure out what their story is and you tell it. In this case it was Thor and it was also Loki and Odin in between them and the rest comes out of that inherent conflict.
UNIDENTIFED SPEAKER: I do want to mention the other writers who aren’t here today too, who have story credit: Mark Protosevich and J. Michael Straczynski who helped craft the story early on. That’s why they have story credit but, you know, we built on a foundation of all those years of comics and we were able to select the best moments and that’s thanks to Stan Lee and Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby and Walt Simonson and [PH] JMS once again. And so I think we all have our favorite moments and I think we build from that.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And [PH] Snory Sterlson.
UNIDENTIFED SPEAKER: Snev--Snory, can’t forget Snory.
UNIDENTIFED SPEAKER: That’s true.
ASHELY MILLER: That’s true, he did a one shot.
UNIDENTIFED SPEAKER: That’s true, it’s a called the prose edda.
UNIDENTIFED SPEAKER: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: You spoke earlier about the magnitude of casting your Thor. Can you walk us through the casting process a little bit more and then once you were on set what Anthony and Chris’s relationship was like?
KENNETH BRANAGH: I think the--well, from what the boys were saying, you know, finding the--finding that sort of character arc for Thor was key and we were doing that all the way through the early process of finding Thor. So it’s true to say that Chris Hemsworth came in early on and I think that we weren’t fully on the page with what we were developing for him. We weren’t as--we weren’t as clear--we became pretty ambitious with what was clearly going to be a character journey. Somebody who definitely changed from the beginning of the movie to the end, so we--the more we’d realize that the more we realized it wouldn’t only rely on brawn it would need some sort of acting brains and some emotion and some fun and that the character could take it and the story seemed to want it. And so we’re looking for--yeah, really a lot tied up in bundle.
And then at some point we said, “Well, we should go back and meet that very handsome Australian lad who came in when our story wasn’t really on the page. And when he came back and he did a number of things, he read and he did sort of workshops and he read with actors, with actresses. And then on one day when he kind of nailed it he told a story of Thor’s kind of deeds like a warrior retelling some story of a great battle and the mixture of a kind of arrogance that he needed to have still was done with such charm that it was--that it seemed to be that, you know, that absolutely--that nailed it. It meant that when he got on set with Tony Hopkins there was the--additionally this required quality of an innate charming confidence that did not spill over into arrogance or overconfidence that meant that he would stand up in a scene with Tony Hopkins, you know? And not--he couldn’t as the prince of Asgard shy away from it--so it was
really a privilege to see how he embodied all of that. And then, you know, ultimately of course when he takes his shirt off there’s also a wow factor that cannot be denied. [LAUGHTER] So he--
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: [OVERLAPPING] So dreamy! [LAUGHTER]
KENNETH BRANAGH: As Louis D’Esposito, co-president of Marvel, said when we looked at it a few weeks ago when we were finishing it off he said, “My god, he looks good in Three-D!” [LAUGHTER]
INTERVIEWER: Kenneth, over here, was there any effort to be eco-friendly at all on the set to reduce, reuse, recycle any materials or waste and reduce energy waste, anything like that? I know it’s a big action movie but--
KENNETH BRANAGH: Well, we tried--
INTERVIEWER: --was there a concern that way?
KENNETH BRANAGH: --tried where we could to be perfectly honest, led by Natalie Portman who resisted as we are not doing this morning, the use of plastic bottles.
INTERVIEWER: [SOUNDS LIKE] And what was she--
KENNETH BRANAGH: And so she was an influence, it was very--in the action sequences in terms of smoke, energy we used, no it was a factor. I think it is woven into what we do you’re right. So it is an action movie and you’re gonna spill some water every now and again, but I think, you know, we attended to it and we did the best we could.
INTERVIEWER: Ken, could you talk about discovering Thor in the comics as a young person or a teen and how--what was it about that that you thought was, “He’s a cool guy.”?
KENNETH BRANAGH: Well, for me it was this sort of the primitive quality. I liked his wild quality. I like the Viking at the center of it, that’s what I saw when I saw those images on a comic book. That he was volatile, I thought that would be dangerous in telling a movie, that he’s not too smooth. He’s not too slick and one of the things that we were trying to achieve in the telling of the story was that it could feel, you know, in the moment. That there could be some kind of, you know, danger--genuine danger.
Well, what do the boys--what was, how was your [SOUNDS LIKE] thought? How was your Thor,
was your first Thor sort of--you know, why were you drawn to that character if you were?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: [SOUNDS LIKE] Thor experience?
KENNETH BRANAGH: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: You know, I was just a big Marvel fan since I was a kid and I just was also drawn to mythology and that was the perfect blend of both. I also loved seeing him in the Avengers, ‘cause he was--it was this strange group of eclectic heroes that doesn’t seem like they belong together and ultimately they did.
KENNETH BRANAGH: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Somehow it worked.
KENNETH BRANAGH: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And so--
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And I think, you know, the issues that were my favorites were always the--you know, the kind of putting Thor and Loki together and that goes all the way back to--all the way back to Norse mythology. And there’s just something very primal and awesome about putting a strong man and a clever man together and at odds with each other.
ASHLEY MILLER: Yeah, and for me, you know, I was a gigantic fan of Thor as a lad. I’ve got a complete run of everything that well Simonson breathed on with that character. And what really excited me was the possibility of doing the story where a frog finds the hammer and becomes Thor, but Kevin and Ken said no, “There that’s not happening.” So we kept it a big guy who looks good in Three-D.
KENNETH BRANAGH: What about you Kevin, what did you feel about Thor?
KEVIN FEIGE: I like Thor. [LAUGHTER]
KENNETH BRANAGH: Right answer.
KEVIN FEIGE: Well, you know, yes I grew up with the character as I did with all the Marvel characters, but frankly I always wanted to do--I was particularly excited about it coming off of being a part of the Spidey films and the X-Men films and the Hulk films and more recently the Iron Man films, but wanting to expand the notion of a Marvel movie. I like the idea of going to outer space, to going to more of a sci-fi sandbox, which is why frankly we didn’t shy away from big giant gleaming cities in outer space and other planets. Things that--you know, the travel, the [SOUNDS LIKE] by frost travel, which was always a part of the mythology in every comic book, but the way Ken envisioned it in this film has really--you know, this the place with Heimdall with Idris Elba standing in the center of it. It’s just much more of a sci-fi edge at which I always wanted to be a part of and very proud that we’ve pulled it off in a way that all audiences, whether they have read comics or haven’t read comics or like science fiction or don’t like science fiction can respond to and relate to.
INTERVIEWER: This is probably for Kevin and Ken, aside from the Avengers will we be seeing Thor return in maybe some sequels; do you have a trilogy planned and [NOISE IN BACKGROUND] Ken--
KENNETH BRANAGH: [SOUNDS LIKE] There, sorry didn’t you see you.
INTERVIEWER: --Ken will you be returning to direct as well?
KEVIN FEIGE: Well, you know, listen when we embark on this we always--as we’ve already discussed today we’ve got 600 plus issues, we’ve got a thousand years of mythology, we have other stories we’d like to tell. The audience will tell us whether they want to see those other stories, but we have to be prepared for that if that--if we should get the call. So Don Payne is working on story ideas for a Part Two, we’ve got various options with Ken to discuss coming, but right now the focus is on the first one but Don is slowly but surely thinking about where to take the character next should we be so lucky.
KENNETH BRANAGH: Also, we’re also--Kevin and I share, from my point of view, a sort of deep Irish Celtic superstition of taking anything for granted, so--
KEVIN FEIGE: [CHUCKLES] Yes.
KENNETH BRANAGH: --we and the Marvel world is a world of non-assumption. When I first just started in the film business--but please forgive the language I’m about to use--a producer said to me, “Young man, assumption is the mother of all [frick]ups.” [LAUGHTER] So I--we are assuming
nothing, we are offering the film out to the world and we shall listen, is what will happen.
INTERVIEWER: Kenneth, can you talk a little bit about a--I would imagine the casting of Loki character was tough, because that character has gotta be so passive-aggressive and could you just talk about casting Tom for that?
KENNETH BRANAGH: It was--and I’m sure the boys might have something interesting to say about the character, but certainly from the performance point of view we needed somebody who was complex and could remain intelligent. And for me I think there was a constant conversation between us all about can we, should we, is it a good thing to keep the question mark over Loki’s character throughout? Is he bad, does he have a plan, does he love his brother, does he hate his brother, hate his father, is this happening before our very eyes, how does he truly react to the secrets and lies that emerge in the course of the story? And so you needed someone who, you know, could be adept at putting on all those masks and make it seem seamless, so that you were in the scene with the other character who--for instance, when he visits Thor on Earth, you know, and really does something quite appalling in terms of what he passes on. And it’s a beautiful scene, I think, acted very well by the pair of them.
I think that sort of level of shocking skill in a sort of actor in life was what we were after from the performance. Tom I’d worked with in England in the UK on television and theater and knew that he was energized, bright, adroit quick-thinking. That’s what we wanted from the performance, but in terms of the character I don’t know if [SOUNDS LIKE] that makes sense.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: [OVERLAPPING] Yeah, I think--well--
KENNETH BRANAGH: Yeah, go on.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I think all three of us were trying to find the right balance between how much does he know, how bad is he, at what point what did he really do to get to this--to get to the character we all know and hate and love at the end. And--
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: [OVERLAPPING] Well, and yeah, no absolutely.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And yeah, I think the great thing about Loki is that he is this--he’s always smart, he’s always crafting these intricate things that almost always work, but something--he’s gone one step too far all the time. And I think that scene that Ken references where he goes one step too far, he’s bringing Thor down to the lowest he’s ever been and that’s actually the thing that triggers Thor’s redemption at the end. And that seems to be--reflect the comics, I think quite a bit.
ZACK STENTZ: So yeah, so what I love about Loki too as a character is just that if you asked him, he would say that he is the hero of that movie and it’s interesting putting yourself in the mindset of someone who from his perspective is completely right in what he’s doing. And that’s kind of the gold standard of a villain, a great villain in some ways.
UNIDENTIED SPEAKER: And he’s got a point. At the beginning Thor isn’t ready, Thor is an arrogant jerk.
ZACK STENZT: [OVERLAPPING] Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: At the beginning he’s not ready to run the kingdom and he knows that and he took steps to prevent that from happening, and so...
UNIDENTIED SPEAKER: And frankly I think, you know, the thing that is really fascinating about this film and how it works out and the role that Loki plays is in a way Loki does by the end of the movie, everything that Thor wanted to do. You know, and that’s fascinating that really at the heart of that character like Zack said he thinks he’s the hero of the movie. He does everything in his own mind out of love, or at least that’s what he tells himself and a need for that. And it’s hard when you are writing a character like that not to be sympathetic to him in some way. And, you know, obviously Tom is amazing and he just--he takes all of things that we’re talking about very intellectually and he just personifies it and he just boils it down and he just lets it live and he’s just--he’s astounding. He’s a great movie villain.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I think everyone from Day One did their best to keep this from being a mustache-twirling cardboard cutout villain from Tom down to everyone.
KEVIN FEIGE: And the movie very much is an origin of Loki almost as much as it is an origin of Thor and that’s something we had to ride that balance. You know, there were drafts where Thor took over too much or there were certainly drafts where Loki became too prominent, and I think we found a nice balance that is clearly the origin of both of those characters. And Tom is a great actor, there’s no doubt about it, but make no mistake--Tom like Loki, wants to be Thor. [LAUGHTER] Wanted to be Thor, he was up for it, he actually auditioned for Thor right?
KENNETH BRANAGH: He did, yes.
KEVIN FEIGE: For Thor, and he’s talked about that and he gained all sorts of weight and he did his audition and we went, “You’re Loki.” [LAUGHTER AND COMMENTS] And there’s a piece of B-Roll, it might be online.
KENNETH BRANAGH: [INDISCERNIBLE]
KEVIN FEIGE: It might be online now, it’ll definitely be on the DVD, where Tom and Chris are in our big ceremony, Asgardian ceremony set in their full costumes and Tom and Chris is holding his hammer as he did throughout the whole movie and Tom just comes by--this is behind the scenes footage--comes by and, “Let me hold that, let me hold that for a minute.” And you see Tom holding it and dressed as Loki holding it swinging the hammer around and Chris like, “Hey, gimme that back.” [LAUGHTER] It was such a--
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: [OVERLAPPING] Obviously he was worried.
KEVIN FEIGE: [LAUGHS] He was worried--there was such a glee on his face too as he’s holding it up.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: [SOUNDS LIKE] It’s a great slip.
KEVIN FEIGE: It’s very telling.
INTERVIEWER: For the writers and for Mr. Feige--asking for Ken here at a press conference is a fairly hollow exercise, but Mr. Feige you’re thinking of the next eight films Marvel wants to make while you gentlemen are trying to make one very good film. Did you ever butt heads between your desire to make one film and your desire to empire build? [LAUGHTER]
KEVIN FEIGE: Do you guys want to start, just go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, I mean look here’s the thing and we’ve worked for a lot of different people in this town, a lot of studios and a lot of different kinds of projects, and I’ve gotta say here’s the thing that I love most about working with Marvel and Kevin really personifies this. Is that usually when you go into a room and you sit down with somebody and you’re talking to them about their franchise character or the book they want to adapt or their comic book, whatever that is you have to have a conversation about why that character or that franchise is cool. Marvel already knows that it’s cool; you don’t have to justify Thor to Marvel. You know, you don’t have to explain to them why the character works and why people are passionate about it, all you have to do is agree on what’s the best story to tell. And really again, one of the wonderful things is that, you know, I can’t speak to Empire but I can tell you that Marvel, you know, as a whole was very focused on making this the best movie it could possibly be, you know? And that was a great experience to have and a great environment to work in.
KEVIN FEIGE: And we were all fans. We love the Easter eggs as long as they don’t take over the film, you know? It’s gotta be its own Thor story, but everyone was on board with that from the beginning. That Thor is its own stand-alone tale and it’s part of the Marvel cinematic universe and Easter eggs are fun, but it’s gotta stand on its own and I think everyone had the same viewpoint about that.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Absolutely.
INTERVIEWER: This question’s more directed maybe to Zack and Ashley, but the inclusion more--or the more integration of S.H.I.E.L.D. was really apparent in this film more so than, you know, the Iron Man films. Can you talk about maybe folding that in more with this particular script as well as making S.H.I.E.L.D almost look over their heads? Like they’re, “We’re out of our element here, ‘cause we don’t know what to do.”
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I mean you need--I mean, you all have seen the film. What was great about S.H.I.E.L.D is that they’re a great Thor--is that Thor needs a force of opposition through the entire film and obviously when he’s in Asgard or when he’s in Jotunheim there are, you know, frost giants and monsters and his brother and things like that, but once he gets down to Earth he needs obstacles. He needs obstacles in the way of, you know, getting back his hammer and S.H.I.E.L.D was a way--you know, making S.H.I.E.L.D prominent in that way was just a great way to give something that could push back against Thor especially when he didn’t
have his powers.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And especially when you’ve got Clark Gregg who is just awesome and just the perfect foil for that.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Now, I love Clark Gregg and I just think he’s so--ever since Iron Man One something about his smirk and you know there’s so much more going on underneath the surface, there’s something menacing about that smirk and S.H.I.E.L.D was this heroic organization in the Iron Man films. And it’s still scary how easily you can transition that to a shadowy government organization for Thor.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Uh-huh, absolutely.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, and that is all the time that we have for today ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thanks everybody, thank you. [APPLAUSE]
KENNETH BRANAGH: Thanks very much.
[END AUDIO]