There’s no question that after the Hulk smashed Loki and called him a “puny god” in The Avengers, he most likely felt “insane and foolish.” So, it tracks that Tom Hiddleston felt similar feelings while filming the legendary scene. Now, 12 years removed from one of the best Marvel movies’ releases, the Thor actor is breaking down how they shot the sequence and how it made him feel.
As Tom Hiddleston spoke about well-known Loki lines with Variety, he was asked about the scene where The Hulk smashes him. Obviously, that moment is iconic, and to this day it’s beloved. However, it was not easy to film, and the actor didn’t hold back while explaining that, as he said:
I felt insane and foolish. And I alternated between insanity and folly all day [laughs].
To be fair, as Hiddleston said, this is a fight that “Loki definitively loses,” he’s supposed to feel “insane and foolish,” because he’s just been smashed and embarrassed by The Hulk.
The Loki star went on to describe how they filmed this memorable moment, and recalled the “Loki-shaped trenches on set” as well as the goal they had in mind for the sequence as a whole. Tom Hiddleston said:
The effects team and the art department had dug out little Loki-shaped trenches in the set. My job was to jump in and out of these trenches as hard as I can and as high as I can to replicate the effect of being smashed. I remember specifically after saying this line ‘I am a god you dull creature and I will not be bullied by an animal.’ We wanted to create the effect of absolute spontaneity. Loki had no idea what was coming. He was puffed up with all his sense of superiority and status and that that would be completely undercut by him just being wrenched out of frame. And that’s exactly what happened.
Well, all that hard work, jumping, “insanity and folly” paid off, because if you’ve seen the Marvel movies in order, you know that this gag has rippled through the MCU for years.
While Loki didn’t fight Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok, the look of sheer fear on the God of Mischief’s face when he saw Mark Ruffalo’s character was priceless. Plus, when Thor got smashed just like his brother in that movie, it was hard not to laugh about how Hiddleston’s character was still so deeply impacted by being thrown around in The Avengers.
Obviously, Loki wasn’t killed, he was simply defeated in The Avengers, and Hiddleston went on to have even more memorable moments that have been added to his best MCU scenes. From his meaningful death in Avengers: Infinity War (which Josh Brolin sweetly comforted him about) to his development in Loki which ended with him holding time in his hands, we’ve seen the god develop and grow so much since he was smashed by the Hulk.
At this point, we don’t know if Tom Hiddleston or Mark Ruffalo will return as their characters in an upcoming Marvel project. However, if we’ve learned anything from Loki’s story, we should never say never. If there are updates on that front, we’ll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, you can go back and watch this legendary smashing that the God of Mischief actor broke down by streaming The Avengers with a Disney+ subscription.