“Thor”, Kenneth Branagh’s fantastic hit in 2011 is a brazenly ridiculous film. It follows the adventures of the Norse gods Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and Heimdall (Idris Elba), and their role in the brilliant CGI kingdom of Asgard. These are not the gods as seen in Norse mythology, however, but the Marvel Comics versions of the characters. This means that they are actually powerful interdimensional aliens (!) who modeled their appearance after that of Earth’s northern gods in the 10th century. Their magic objects, like Thor’s enchanted hammer (of which you can get a replica here)are actually a form of ultra-advanced technology. These kinds of sci-fi conceits were necessary to ensure that Thor could eventually interact with characters like Iron Man and Captain America.
The drawings of “Thor” are very, very brilliant. The costumes (by Alexandra Byrne) were designed from the Marvel comics, but with a plastic/metallic sheen, making Asgardian fashion look very edgy. Asgardian royalty all wore fabulous capes, golden gauntlets, and glittering breastplates. Most notably, the royals all wore oversized headdresses. Old drawings of Loki from classic comics saw him in a yellow helmet, sporting two backward-curving horns, a foot above his head. Alexandra Byrne designed something similar for Tom Hiddleston, who in several scenes had to wear very uncomfortable headgear, also sporting giant curved horns.
Hiddleston hated that helmet. He didn’t have to wear it throughout “Thor,” but there were several scenes in the thing, meaning he probably had to leave it on for 12 hours at a time while he played. In a 2010 interview with MTV NewsHiddleston said the Asgardian armor and helmet he had to wear prevented him from sweating and left him overheated.
Fake armor kept Tom Hiddleston from sweating
Although the costumes were cleverly designed to appear form-fitting on Tom Hiddleston, the actor revealed that they were actually quite heavy. Hiddleston referred to his helmet as a balaclava, which is usually a full cloth mask, with an opening for the eyes, like a ninja might wear. Loki’s helmet wasn’t a full hood, but it covered Hiddleston’s entire head, jaw, and forehead, so for him it was pretty close. And it was stuffy to wear. As he described it:
“[The helmet] It was extremely hot, because we were all wearing a lot of armor – we wore leather pants, chest plates, shoulder plates, and bicep plates, and the cape was very heavy. […] So you’re hot anyway, and then you put on what I call the steel hood – the horned steel hood – and all the heat that’s going through your body that would normally come out through your head can’t come out through your head. […] Then my brain would slowly fry. And sometimes that really fueled what I was doing. I would go a little crazy in there. »
However, this could have improved Hiddleston’s performance, as Loki is a villainous usurper who aims to oust his own father as king. If the actor seems particularly wide-eyed or crazy in his helmet-wearing scenes, it may have been the costume that forced his performance into exaggeration. You can almost hear him singing Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Princess Ida”: “That helmet, I suppose, was meant to ward off blows. It’s very hot, and weighs a lot, as many guards know.”
Hiddleston has no plans to star in a production of “Princess Ida,” but Loki will return in “Avengers: Doomsday”.
