British rising star Tom Hiddleston is having the kind of year actors dream about. He’s been the bad guy in a mega-budget, CG-packed superhero adventure and played a literary icon to perfection for Woody Allen. For his latest role, Hiddleston is shifting course once again to romance Oscar-winner Rachel Weisz.
The film website UpandComers.net calls him “one of the most dynamic and compelling actors to break out in film in 2011.”
In “Deep Blue Sea” he plays “a semi-alcoholic pilot embroiled in a self-destructive affair with the married Hester Collyer (Weisz).” Based in a 1952 Terence Ratigan stage play, the film was directed by Terence Davies and screened in September at the Toronto International Film Festival . Davies is making his long-awaited return to feature films following a decade-plus hiatus.
“Deep Blue Sea” will also serve as the closing-night presentation for October’s 55th annual BFI London Film Festival.
As the trickster god Loki, Hiddleston tangled with Norse godling-turned-superhero Thor onscreen. The adventure film from director Kenneth Branagh was a worldwide hit and so he’ll be back to bedevil Thor and his superpowered buddies in “The Avengers,” which is filming now and will hit the silver screen next summer.
Hiddleston, 30, played a role in the BBC drama series “Wallander,” which starred Branagh and led to his role in “Thor.” As an acting student, an acclaimed performance in a stage production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” landed the actor his first TV roles, including an acclaimed adaptation of “Nicholas Nickleby” and the role of Winston Churchill‘s son in the Emmy-winning television movie “A Gathering Storm.”
In addition to Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” (still in theatres) where he played F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hiddleston will next anchor “War Horse” for Steven Spielberg during the holidays.