Things You Didn't Know About Tom Hiddleston

Dudes know him as Loki from Thor. Ladies know him as that British guy who awkwardly dated Taylor Swift for three months. But just who is Tom Hiddleston? We've scoured the contents of numerous interviews to give you a better idea about the British-born actor who was once rumored to be the next James Bond. Here's what we found.

Hiddleston became an overnight sensation after landing the part of the villainous Loki in the 2011 superhero flick Thor and its many iterations. Ironically, he says he originally came to Los Angeles hoping to land the title role.

"Thor was being cast during my first ever trip to Los Angeles as an actor," Hiddleston told The Huffington Post in 2014. "I'd been signed by an agent on the back of a Shakespeare play I did in London and they said to me: 'Come to LA and we'll introduce you to the city.'"

"I auditioned for everything under the sun: television series, films that you've seen, films that have been huge hits—and films that haven't," he continued. "Thor was one of them and it was a potential opportunity for me because I had a connection to [director] Kenneth Branagh; I'd worked with him in the theatre. I thought, 'At least there's someone in this world of Hollywood who I don't have to prove something to because he knows I can act.'"

Hiddleston gained a staggering 18 pounds of muscle in just six weeks before his audition for Thor. "I've still got the pictures to prove it," he quipped to The Huffington Post.

In the end, director Branagh felt Hiddleston was better suited to play Loki, a role Hiddleston didn't even know about while he was auditioning. "In a way, it was a gift—and I have no regrets about it at all," Hiddleston said. "I've never once thought, 'I wish I were playing Thor.'"

"I'm really proud of the audition," he added. "It proved a lot to me as an actor because I've never committed so much to an audition before."

Speaking to the The Telegraph in 2014, Hiddleston said he became interested in acting thanks to his mother, Diana, a former stage manager and "opera fanatic." According to the interview, his family would often take trips to see the Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as the National Theater in London. "She loved it, and she recognised that I loved it as well, which made it a very special thing to share," he said.

Although his mother encouraged him to pursue the theater, Hiddleston says his dad had a tougher time accepting his son's acting ambitions. "He was genuinely worried that I would be bored and unfulfilled,' Hiddleston told The Telegraph. "Acting was completely other from anything he knew and he just couldn't see that it was a real job."

Hiddleston says his father has since come around, due in part to his son's often grueling work schedule. "He's seen that it takes six months to make a Thor film," Hiddleston said. "I've described my working process to him; the fact that, some days, I get up at four in the morning and don't get home until nine at night, and he's absolutely acknowledged that that's real work."

At the age of 13, Hiddleston began attending England's prestigious Eton College, an all boys boarding school. Among his contemporaries: Prince William.

"There was a general and very quietly stated ethos when he arrived that there was to be no special treatment and no special favours," Hiddleston said of William, according to the Daily Mail. "It would have made everyone's life hell if they had to treat him as someone special. I think it was very healthy for him to be just another boy."

Despite attending such a froufrou school, Hiddleston insists enrolling at Eton was rooted in his father's humble, self-made upbringing. "My dad made himself from the ground up..." Hiddleston told The Telegraph. "[He came] from nothing [and tried his] hardest to give [his] child the best education."

According to the Daily Mail, Hiddleston's parents divorced when he was 13 years old. The dramatic life change played a part in his desire to act in the theater. "I think I started acting because I found being away at school while my parents were divorcing really distressing," he said in 2012. "It's only now I've got a retrospective angle on it." He told The Telegraph, "I like to think it made me more compassionate in my understanding of human frailty."

Although Hiddleston was heavily rumored at one point to take over the role of James Bond from Daniel Craig, especially as Craig made it more and more clear that he had no interest in doing another movie, spies for Page Six revealed in April 2017 that under no circumstances would he have actually landed the part. Not if producer Barbara Broccoli had her way, anyway.

"Barbara Broccoli doesn't like Tom Hiddleston," a source told the paper. "He's a bit too smug and not tough enough to play James Bond." Ouch.

For his part, Hiddleston always shied away from the rumors that he would play Bond, at one point admitting to British GQ, "It's difficult to talk about because it's a completely unreal conversation in a way. I haven't spoken to anyone who makes those films. It's just an idea in people's minds. So it's quite hard to engage with because it hasn't come from me if that makes sense."

Yeah, but still ... ouch.

Much to the disappointment of fans, Hiddleston hinted to The Daily Beast in March 2016 that his time playing Loki may soon come to an end. "Thor 3 will be cool because I've not done it for four years," he said. "I love working with Chris [Hemsworth]. This will be my last time out of the gate."

When asked if that meant he won't appear in Avengers: Infinity War, Hiddleston said: "I don't know! Honestly, I don't know. They haven't got their ducks in a row yet. They make it up as they go along."

Hiddleston's three-month relationship with Taylor Swift was a public-relations disaster for a number of reasons; however, arguably the lowest point in their brief fling came around Fourth of July weekend in 2016, when paparazzi captured Hiddleston wearing a tank-top which read "I [Heart] T.S" over his abs.

The infamous fashion faux-pas caused the internet to react with everything from an eye roll to declarations that Swift was once again moving too fast in a relationship. But to this day, Hiddleston insists the whole thing was just an innocent joke.

"The truth is, it was the Fourth of July and a public holiday and we were playing a game and I slipped and hurt my back, Hiddleston told GQ in February 2017. "And I wanted to protect the graze from the sun and said, 'Does anyone have a T-shirt?' And one of her friends said, 'I've got this.' And we all laughed about it. It was a joke."

"I just, I was surprised," he added. "I was just surprised that it got so much attention. The tank top became an emblem of this thing."

In January 2017, Hiddleston gave a rather tone-deaf acceptance speech at the Golden Globes, during which he awkwardly rambled about meeting doctors and nurses in South Sudan who told him how much they loved binge-watching his miniseries The Night Manager.

Naturally, the speech bombed, both with the audience at the Beverly Hilton and those watching at home, forcing Hiddleston to issue an apology on Facebook.

"I just wanted to say ... I completely agree that my speech at the Golden Globes last night was inelegantly expressed," he wrote on Facebook (via Page Six). "In truth, I was very nervous, and my words just came out wrong. Sincerely, my only intention was to salute the incredible bravery and courage of the men and women who work so tirelessly for UNICEF UK, Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and World Food Programme, and the children of South Sudan, who continue to find hope and joy in the most difficult conditions. I apologize that my nerves got the better of me."

Well, better late than never.

What's more annoying than a charming, good-looking and talented actor with a sexy British accent? A charming, good-looking and talented actor with a sexy British actor who also just so happens to speak multiple languages.

That appears to be the case for Hiddleston, who on many press stops throughout his career has proven to be quite good at speaking in languages ranging from French, to Italian and Spanish. In fact, he's done it so often that an entire YouTube video about it has been made and seen by nearly one million people now. If you're not one of those people, and feel like getting a little jealous today, you can see it now in all of its glory by clicking here.