The 44-year-old is possibly best known as the mischievous Loki in Marvel’s expansive superhero cinematic universe (including the Taika Waititi-directed Thor: Ragnarok), but he’s far from a one-trick pony.
His initial 2016 portrayal of British military man turned hotelier Jonathan Pine in the critically acclaimed first season of The Night Manager (the creation of spy writer John le Carré) brought him a whole new legion of fans across the world (as did a short, but highly publicised stint as Taylor Swift’s boyfriend). The role – the acting one, not the romantic one – also nabbed him a Golden Globe award.
Hiddleston is no stranger to the stage either, starring in the likes of Coriolanus and, in 2019, Betrayal, where he met his fiancée Zawe Ashton. The couple recently welcomed their second child.
Hiddleston returned to The Night Manager and the role of Pine after a 10-year break. He played Hillary in the upcoming biopic Tenzing not long after. He found the two characters “fascinating companions to live alongside” and says he admires them both for different reasons.
“Both of them were ‘fit and strong’, as Hillary would have said,” Hiddleston notes, putting on a remarkably convincing Kiwi accent to get into character.
“[The phrase] actually became one of the things I kept saying to myself to try and keep myself in the New Zealand accent: ‘as a party, we were fit and strong, so we had a good shot’.”
Tenzing follows the perilous journey sherpa Tenzing Norgay (played by Genden Phuntsok) and Hillary undertook to become the first people to summit Mt Everest. Hiddleston describes Hillary as an “extraordinary human being” who achieved one of mankind’s most remarkable feats.
The film, which also stars Outlander‘s Caitriona Balfe and Willem Dafoe, was primarily shot in the Southern Alps around Aoraki/Mt Cook in 2025, as well as at the Remarkables near Queenstown.
“I spent six or seven weeks [in New Zealand] last winter … July and August of 2025 we were there, and it was amazing,” Hiddleston recalls.
He describes his first time in New Zealand as a “once in a lifetime” experience.
“My enormous gratitude to those people I met and worked with in New Zealand. It was a bucket list moment for me to go down there and to be in those mountains with those mountaineering professionals and with the New Zealand film crews. The beauty was breathtaking.”
With Tenzing filming now wrapped, Hiddleston is able to reflect on his Night Manager journey, after the 10-year gap. Set four years after the original series, Pine is still deeply involved in covert operations, yet is faced with a new threat, as successors attempt to fill the space left by arms dealer Richard Roper’s (Hugh Laurie) fallen empire.
The decade-long gap, Hiddleston says, was a blessing, giving him more time for Pine to change just as the world itself had changed.
“The world has been a fascinating, complex place. So many things have happened at home and abroad, to all of us. In lots of ways, the world is a little more uncertain and fragmented. But perhaps it’s not. Perhaps that’s just my perspective,” he says.
“I love the fact that I could embrace that I myself was 10 years older. And my inclination or my instinct about Pine was that he is, by the end of the first series, wide awake and possessed of a curiosity that he’s seen behind the curtain.”
It was also a great chance for Hiddleston to work alongside Oscar-winner Olivia Colman again, who also starred in the first series.
“She’s the best. She’s so honest in her approach to life and the work,” he says, describing his castmate as “very straightforward, a complete professional, very playful, mischievous, and caring”.
“She wants everyone to be okay. And I’m so proud of her to the extent that any pride is permissible, because in the 10 years since we last worked together, she’s won an Oscar and become a national treasure in many nations.”
Whether Hiddleston will become a New Zealand national treasure after his portrayal of Hillary is still to be determined – Tenzing does not have a current release date.
But the actor finishes our Zoom by reassuring me that the chance to embody one of history’s greatest Kiwis was, for him, an “unforgettable, unrepeatable experience”.
The Night Manager: Season 2 starts streaming on Prime Video January 11
Mitchell Hageman joined the Herald’s entertainment and lifestyle team in 2024. He previously worked as a multimedia journalist for Hawke’s Bay Today.