Tom Hiddleston recites Loki's Latin Pompeii monologue

[00:00:00]May he Norman as Loki, perfectus consilii at tempus mutandem.

[00:00:05]>> I had such a fascination with Pompeii when I was growing up. I think I remember doing a whole pamphlet at school on the Caesars and all that. So, stuff like this just >> have it?

[00:00:12]>> It might be at home somewhere. I'm sure it is. Um but I know Tom this kind of span from you going in what 1998 with all your friends and everything. I don't know how much you believe in the butterfly effect or maybe branches if you ever >> Branches in the time >> Yeah, you know, on a [laughter] timeline. [clears throat] Do you think we would be sitting here right now had you not made that trip in 1998?

[00:00:33]>> was a nexus event. How does it sound like it was? I probably not, you know. I I mean maybe if we were, it would be different. Um and all the things I know about Pompeii I'd be learning for the first time.

[00:00:46]I do think it was formative for me for in so many ways. It was the most fantastic trip. It was you know, that it was in in its own way ancient history.

[00:00:55]>> [laughter] >> I didn't have a mobile phone. We didn't have uh the internet. There were no I didn't have an email address.

[00:01:01]And so being in Naples on my own with two friends in 1998, we felt like we were exploring. You know, we were not we wrote postcards home. Um >> I miss those days.

[00:01:11]>> We had maps, you know. We just it's the it was just before technology. And it was very formative in lots of my first trip away with no adult supervision. So suddenly you're having to just for the first time organize yourself in a different country speaking a different language. So massive human new experience.

[00:01:32]World Cup summer, France 1998.

[00:01:34]>> Watched the quarterfinals, semifinals, and the final in Italy that summer.

[00:01:39]Um but crucially, I suppose, I was at the end of my lower sixth at school about to do my A levels.

[00:01:45]I had chosen English literature, theater studies, Latin, and Greek. And up until that point, I loved Latin. I loved the Greek myths, Theseus and the Minotaur, the 12 labors of Hercules, Jason and the Argonauts, you know, Perseus and Medusa, all those great stories, the Odyssey. I love the >> all of those things. It's like take me back as well. I'm like, wow.

[00:02:05]>> it would all My point is it was always just in books. And suddenly, to being in Pompeii um in '98 and walk I don't quite know what I was expecting, but I was I was knocked sideways by it.

[00:02:18]>> Hold on, do you guys do this so that it coincided with the World Cup again? Just because you had [laughter] >> All of the projects are going to be planned around the Every every every four years it'll just be World Cup time.

[00:02:27]>> Uh what did you guys particularly nerd out on? Cuz like you say, you are very interested Obviously it became came a scene in Loki as well. Like it is something that you guys are very interested in. What did you particularly nerd out on maybe that you learn or that, you know, was got you fascinated.

[00:02:43]Because I last night learned that we can outrun lava. And now it's >> [laughter] >> ruined And now it's ruined playing The Floor is Lava with my niece and nephews.

[00:02:51]>> I I wouldn't want to test I would not want to test that theory. I [laughter] still would want to be very far away.

[00:02:57]>> I actually really do. I just do want to test it. [laughter] >> I mean, yeah, it's good to know you can outrun it. You however you cannot outrun a pyroclastic flow, which is what the kind of avalanche of ash and pumice and superheated rock was that came down from Vesuvius. That's what I learned. Yeah. I suppose what Can I say what I geeked out on? I really want to throw it to you cuz you hadn't been before.

[00:03:19]I really believed that it was that Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD and immediately, instantly blanketed the city.

[00:03:29]>> Like like we did in Loki, yeah.

[00:03:31]>> Buried it for 1,800 years until it was discovered by archaeologists. I did not know that it erupted around lunchtime in August and then the next day it was buried. So suddenly you've got a window of what we would think of >> We were taught, right? Like kind of at school we were taught it was immediate.

[00:03:50]>> Yeah. And And you think, well, they can Well, well, hang on.

[00:03:53]They've got time. This suddenly got like a day in which to do different things and because of where the research is now and the the complexity and the rigor with which this research has been done by historians and archaeologists you can essentially retrace the footsteps of individual people through the city through those 24 hours whether they stayed or left whether they went back into the the town to be with their mothers or sons or families to get their belongings whether they helped organize people into the boats in Herculaneum and get them into the water on the Bay of Naples and away from it.

[00:04:28]So suddenly it becomes incredibly dynamic and propulsive cuz you've got this ticking clock and a a war of volcanic debris that's that's shooting 20 miles into the sky into space which they can see before it falls and that was the thing I really noted out on. And there were people who made it out.

[00:04:49]>> I I was blown I was blown away by just the power of the the forum and when you walk into the forum it's the first place that we go into and that's that that moment in the show when Tom's going talking to Sarita our our disaster psychologist saying it's there you're saying maybe why aren't why like why aren't people leaving?

[00:05:07]>> The scene like I mentioned in Loki is probably one of the most memorable from the whole of that series but you didn't actually film that one in Pompeii did you?

[00:05:16]>> We did not.

[00:05:16]>> So did you when you went to Pompeii this time recreate any of those Loki scenes?

[00:05:21]>> I can still remember those lines though I think Meehan Norman as Loki praefectus consilii ad tempus mutandum.

[00:05:30]Um de futuro something something Iste mons ignis per saecula womit womitoris it's about this this this mountain's about to erupt and then I have to check if I'm from the future. What I remember was omnes Is that right? Yes was omnes you yes morituri astis.

[00:05:48]>> Yeah.

[00:05:48]>> Such a lovely thing to say.

[00:05:49]>> There I know I think there was some there was some >> [laughter] >> there was some hidden Easter eggs that our production designer on this Natalie had hidden on the walls in the in the recreations of Pompeii.

[00:06:02]There might be some horns hidden around.

[00:06:04]>> Yeah, yeah.

[00:06:04]>> on the set.

[00:06:05]>> There were lots of goats in Pompeii.

[00:06:07]There were lots of goats, yeah. They were like goats. So, no we didn't do it just out of respect for the for the city actually.

[00:06:12]>> Fair enough.

[00:06:13]>> But it was yeah, it was a having >> done that scene and we were in Atlanta, Georgia and it was a set.

[00:06:20]With real goats, I might add.

[00:06:21]>> Yes, [laughter] real goats, yeah.

[00:06:23]>> Be free my horned friends. Be free.

[00:06:26]>> [laughter] >> See, it had an impact on you that you could remember it all practically word for word as well.

[00:06:31]>> Yeah, well it's it was a happy day for me. It was a confluence of all my all my passions and interests.

[00:06:37]>> He helped us retranslate the lines because we'd gotten it wrong in the script, so.

[00:06:41]>> Yeah, I mean >> [laughter] >> I spent 3 years on it at university.

[00:06:45]>> I felt like it was mine.

[00:06:46]>> If I didn't, you know what I mean? It's my duty to My teachers would have been like, "Tom, come on."

[00:06:51]>> Mary Beard would be calling.

[00:06:52]>> You continue to surprise us all the time. Listen, what can't you do Tom at this point?

[00:06:55]>> So much.

[00:06:56]>> I look forward to finding out.

[00:06:58]>> There's a lot. There's a lot.