The scene Tom Hiddleston calls one of the “great pieces of screen acting”
A classically-trained actor making their bed in the superhero genre and then lying in it for over a decade would normally raise eyebrows among the purists, but Tom Hiddleston has shown more than enough range to display his immense versatility.
Obviously, the role of Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe will always be the one that defines his career, considering he’s been playing it since 2011 and has so far notched seven feature film appearances, two seasons of his own TV show, and four episodes of an animated spinoff as the Asgardian trickster. However, a quick glance at his stage and screen career presents a well-rounded performer capable of almost anything.
A Golden Globe winner for ‘Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film’ in The Night Manager and a Laurence Oliver Award victor for his breakout stage performance in Cymbeline, Hiddleston has broadened his horizons in everything from Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris to Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak via Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise and Hank Williams biopic I Saw the Light.
One genre that’s conspicuously absent is the hard-boiled crime thriller, though, seeing as there’s one example he holds in the highest of personal esteem. The star has a huge canvas print of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino’s legendary coffee shop confrontation in Heat hanging on the walls of his home, and he’s got another poster for the movie in his library.
In fact, he was so mesmerised by the head-to-head between the Academy Award-winning icons that he memorised the entirety of the unforgettable scenes and honed his impressions of both players as a result, which made it all the more nerve-wracking when he was forced to do it not just on television, but sitting directly opposite De Niro.
Describing the moment as “one of the great pieces of screen acting you can hope to watch” is an entirely accurate summation, but having the balls to then recreate some of it in the presence of De Niro requires a performer unburdened from the very concept of self-consciousness, especially when the erstwhile Neil McCauley’s mileage varies when being confronted with approximations of his own work.
“No, I kind of enjoy it,” he admitted on The Graham Norton Show, where he was parked across from Hiddleston. “Especially if they do it well, it’s great”. Fortunately for Hiddleston, De Niro was left suitably impressed after he busted out a few of Heat‘s most memorable lines on a whim, leading to a rapturous response from the audience in attendance.
The filmmaker has confirmed plans to turn his sequel novel into a movie, and while it’s unlikely Hiddleston will be offered the parts of either young McCauley or Vincent Hanna, maybe Mann should put him on speed dial if there’s any last-minute ADR needing to be done.
