Tom Hiddleston

Thomas William Hiddleston (born 9 February 1981) is a British actor. He gained international fame portraying Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), beginning with Thor in 2011 and including the Disney+ series Loki (2021–2023).

Hiddleston started his film career with Joanna Hogg's films Unrelated (2007) and Archipelago (2010). In 2011, Hiddleston portrayed F. Scott Fitzgerald in Woody Allen's romantic comedy Midnight in Paris, and appeared in Steven Spielberg's War Horse. That year, he was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award. He continued working with auteurs in independent films, including Terence Davies' drama The Deep Blue Sea (2012), Jim Jarmusch's vampire film Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) and Guillermo del Toro's horror film Crimson Peak (2015). He also played the troubled country music singer Hank Williams in the biopic I Saw The Light (2015) and led the big-budget adventure film Kong: Skull Island (2017). On television, Hiddleston is starring in and executive producing the BBC One series The Night Manager (2016–present), for which he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor.

Hiddleston made his stage debut in Journey's End in 1999. He continued acting in theatre, including in the West End productions of Cymbeline (2007) and Ivanov (2008). He won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Newcomer in a Play for his role in Cymbeline and was nominated for the same award for his role as Cassio in Othello (2008). Hiddleston starred as the title character in a production of Coriolanus (2013–2014), receiving a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor. He made his Broadway debut in a 2019 revival of Harold Pinter's drama Betrayal, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.

Thomas William Hiddleston was born on 9 February 1981 in the Westminster district of London to Diana Patricia (née Servaes) Hiddleston, an arts administrator and former stage manager from Suffolk in east England, and Dr. James Norman Hiddleston, from Greenock in Renfrewshire in the west of Scotland, a physical chemist and former managing director of a biotechnology company that liaised with Oxford University. Hiddleston has an older sister, Sarah Alexandra Hiddleston, who works as a journalist in Chennai, India, and a younger sister, Emma Elizabeth (née Hiddleston) Blakiston-Houston, who is an actress and midwife.

On his mother's side, Hiddleston is a great-grandson of Vice-Admiral Reginald Servaes and a great-great-grandson of food producer Sir Edmund Vestey. Through Vestey, Hiddleston is a distant cousin of Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who is a great-grandson of Edmund Vestey. Hiddleston's paternal grandfather, Alexander, served in the Royal Artillery and worked as a plater in the shipyards. He shares the same name as his great-great-uncle, Tom Hiddleston, a shipyard plater from Greenock and a member of the Royal Artillery's 51st (Highland) Division, who died after the Battle of the Somme and whose name is engraved in the Broomhill war memorial.

Hiddleston was raised in Wimbledon in his early years, and later moved to a village near Oxford. He began boarding at Windlesham House School at age seven, moving to the Dragon School in Oxford a year later. His parents divorced when he was twelve. At age thirteen, Hiddleston started boarding at Eton College. He continued on to Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge, where he earned a double first honours degree in Classics. During his second term at Cambridge, he was seen in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire by talent agent Lorraine Hamilton of Hamilton Hodell. In 2005, he graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art with a Bachelor of Arts honours degree in acting.

While still doing student plays, Hiddleston began appearing on television, landing parts in Stephen Whittaker's adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby (2001) for ITV, the BBC/HBO co-production Conspiracy (2001), and as Randolph Churchill, the son of Winston Churchill, in the BBC/HBO drama The Gathering Storm (2002).

Upon graduating from RADA, Hiddleston was cast in his first film role, playing Oakley in Joanna Hogg's first feature film, Unrelated (2006). His sister Emma also appeared in the film as Badge. Casting director, Lucy Bevan, who cast him in the film said "there was just a fantastic confidence about him". Hiddleston had leading roles in Declan Donnellan's company Cheek by Jowl's productions The Changeling (2006), and Cymbeline (2007). For the latter he won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Newcomer in a Play. His Donmar Warehouse credits include Cassio in Michael Grandage's production of Shakespeare's Othello (2008) alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ewan McGregor, and Lvov in the West End revival of Chekhov's Ivanov (2008) with Kenneth Branagh.