Tom Hiddleston & Elizabeth Debicki Reunite 9 Years After 'The Night Manager'

Hey.

Whoops, hey.

I feel like I've come to your very fancy living room.

Well, I wish.

[cheery jazz music]

I just got like a zoom flash memory

of actually like working-

[Tom] Yes. With you.

Yes, yes which we haven't done for what?

Nine years.

You know, why we're on this thing?

[Tom] Cause we worked together once.

We're old now.

I certainly am, you're not.

You're not allowed to say that.

Do you remember how old I was

when I did The Night Manager?

25?

I was 24. 24.

I didn't know how to tie my shoes-

What did I know? When I was 24?

Wanna come?

I don't think that will be wise.

There's no current.

I think it was the most glam job.

I remember it looked very glamorous

and we were in some very glamorous locations,

but my memory of it was of the four...

I think four distinct different identities

that I was playing and having to jump in

because we were cross boarding it,

having to jump around- Yes.

In between different identities and different costumes.

So I remember it being quite sort of stressful,

in a good way, it was very fast.

It was very fast for you, yeah.

I was in much less of it than you.

I mean, there's, you know...

It's like when you watch a TV-

Interesting, I don't recall that at all.

When you watch a TV show as an actor and you see,

you know, the lead of the show.

How many episodes was, nine?

[Tom] Six. Six.

Six, eight, 10, whatever.

And you see that that actor is in almost every shot.

Yeah.

You know, as an actor, when I watch that,

I think... [Elizabeth groans]

That must have been a hard job for them.

And I think that was you.

But you've now done that.

Yes, I've done it much more.

Yeah but at the time, on our show, I mean, my memory of it,

it's probably very immediately tinged

with golden nostalgia.

But I was so happy making that show.

It was-

I couldn't believe I got the part to begin with, you know.

Do you remember when we did rehearsals in Marrakesh,

in the hotel, in like a conference loungey room,

and it was you, Hugh, Olivia, Tom, Susanna.

Yes. And myself.

And I remember sitting there

and you were all so incredibly articulate

and you'd all, so...

But you were and you'd had so much,

like, you'd had so much more experience.

Well, they certainly had.

I just remember sitting there and I honestly had this,

you know, this thought of like...

♪ One of these things is not like the one ♪

I was like, oh my god, I'm such [indistinct].

No, no. Like an Australian baby.

No, no that's not...

That's not what happened.

That's not how I remember it at all.

I remember you just being...

It was effortless, that's what I remember.

I'll embarrassed you briefly.

I remember we were doing a script-

Not hard, A script meeting.

It was a room above a room, above a conference room

in Holburn or something?

[Elizabeth] No windows In the rain, yeah.

And we were talking about

the shape of the script and threading

through all kinds of different things, the update.

And at the end of that meeting, it was like dark outside.

Susanna said, I found Jed.

And we went, Oh great, what's her name?

And she said, Elizabeth Debicki.

And she took her laptop out and said, This is her tape.

And suddenly we were all watching your tape

for the first time and I remember,

it was absolutely astonishing.

I'll never forget that and Hugh and I going,

Wow, okay that's Jed.

And it was the most brilliant audition.

There were many things that made it

a really extraordinary job.

Susanna, one, and the cast, like most gorgeous actors.

[Tom] Yeah, yeah.

Ever been shoved together in a thing.

But we really were everywhere

that the camera showed us to be.

Yeah.

And that is so extraordinarily-

Yeah. Rare.

And so helpful. No, so helpful.

Because it just informs everything.

Yeah. About your...

You know, that your body begins to feel

and then your mind catches up with it.

Doesn't he look grown up?

Very nice.

Thank you.

Alright.

It's so funny, the other day...

This is a crap story, but I was...

So often people say, Oh my God, you're the night manager.

Or, they-

They say that you're the night manager?

You're the night manager.

And I go, My name's Tom, hello, nice to you.

[both laughing] Yeah.

The other day I was in a food shop

and I was at the checkout,

and somebody very sweet lady came up to me

and said, Are you the manager?

And I said, Actually, I'm Tom.

Yeah but are you the manager?

I'm looking for roast chicken.

I thought, Okay, sorry, sorry.

No, I'm not that manager, I think you probably...

I'm flattered that you think I run this place but...

Did you help her find the chicken?

[Tom] I did. Yep.

Yeah, she had other complaints about the store,

which I couldn't- Sure.

I couldn't remedy, sadly.

But anyway, but here's what I-

But anyway, The Crown.

Here's what I bet people

stop you in the street about, Diana.

Nobody stops me in the street.

Really?

No, I find that English people are very...

They're keen on personal space.

[Tom] Yes. As an Australian,

[Tom] I found this here. Yes, yes.

So yeah no, no people...

No one's stopping me on the street.

Let it be said, first off- Uh-oh.

You are magnificent in The Crown.

You are absolutely magnificent.

And I don't know how you did it, frankly.

You've taken on a character

that exists in the public consciousness

in such a luminous, striking,

and personal way for every person.

I kind of don't know how you did it.

I've watched you and gone, how is she...

How is she doing this?

Cause I know you and so I'm looking for Elizabeth,

but I can't see it.

And yet I see aspects of someone

who I knew from a distance as a young person.

Obviously, I didn't...

I had no proximal relationship to Diana at all.

I thought you meant me.

[both laughing]

I think I know you a little better than I knew her.

I thought, I thought we were friends.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah, come on.

But no, so I felt I got to know Diana

more intimately through what you were doing.

And it was so human and compassionate,

and loving, and detailed.

I mean, the detail in your performance is astonishing.

[Queen Elizabeth] I suppose it's already

too late to stop this?

Yes.

I just thought it was amazing.

Thank you.

How has it been?

How was it?

It felt like it was the right sized challenge

for what I wanted to try and do as an actor.

That's a retrospective.

Yeah, you can't think about that.

No, at the time I felt...

Beforehand I felt very, very nervous.

I mean like very nervous.

[Tom] Understandably so.

Which translated into me becoming quite fixated

on the technicality of everything in the beginning.

Yeah but that keeps you safe, doesn't it?

It felt like it was keeping me safe

until actually it felt like it was sort of a hindrance.

[Tom] Yeah.

[Tom] I watched a lot. Yeah.

I thought maybe by osmosis I would just absorb it

which I think I sort of did

once you sit with enough hours.

It was a very all consuming-

[Tom] I bet. Two and a bit years.

Yeah.

I feel that I have a strange encyclopedic knowledge

of certain strange things. Yeah, yeah.

I also have like a vast treasure chest of stories.

Because once you play somebody like that,

most people have had a...

When I was on the King's Road,

I got out of a cab and there she was,

walking into a hat shop.

Or you know, whatever it was.

And it was, and they'll say,

It was the 16th of May, it was a Thursday.

You know, it was...

It's burned into people's memories.

I dunno, I'm very clear about the fact

that it was a character that I created,

but it was a great gift, it taught me a lot

about being a person.

That's so interesting.

Yeah. Yeah.

It taught me a lot, I think it opened up my heart a lot.

Wow. Yeah.

What an amazing thing to say.

Yeah, what a gift.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I don't a terrible amount about Marvel.

Apart from having been in one of the films.

Yes, yes I've been in two.

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume Two.

I feel that when I was working

with you on The Night Manager,

how many films had you already done by then

where you played Loki, two?

Three. Three.

Yeah. That was sort of the-

I was 33.

I sort of didn't know that it was this massive thing

and it was...

You were a massive star

and it was this big thing. Well...

It's a definitely a...

Well, that's very sweet of you.

That character has been with you for how many years?

Yeah, 15 years now, yeah so I was cast...

I'm now 43 and I was cast when I was 28.

[Tom] Wow. Which is...

What does it feel like to-

[Tom] Yeah.

To be with someone for that long?

Definitely there was a moment of, it was a big...

Right, maybe kind of similar to what you were saying

about being cast in The Night Manager,

a very lengthy audition process.

And then Kevin Feige saying,

Actually, we've got plans for Loki.

And like, and there were plans far above

and beyond my expectations.

I thought I was just doing it for one film

that Loki would be the antagonist

in the first Avengers film

because he was the antagonist in the first Avengers comic.

And suddenly I was standing in a circle

with Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner,

Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, and Chris Evans.

All of us in our vibrant, multicolored outfits.

And I remember the film came out

and it changed all of our lives, I think.

It changed my life forever.

Oh, I've heard.

Her is beast, makes play he's still a man.

How desperate are you?

That you call on such lost creatures to defend you.

[Nick Fury] How desperate am I?

And then the joy of continuing to play the character,

having built Loki as a...

I always saw him as a broken soul with a shattered heart.

[Loki slamming]

I won't touch Barton.

Not until I make him kill you, slowly, intimately.

Across the journey, all the way up to the show.

I wanted to find a way of redeeming,

to sort of find his way back to the light.

And to have had the chance to do that across 15 years

is really rare 'cause the audience are coming with you too.

The audience are invested in who the character is

and you get...

Because I think he's such a complex character,

the mask of the character is full of wit,

and charm, and playfulness.

But the mask is hiding all the loneliness,

and the pain, and the loss.

There's a great vulnerability inside of him.

But I love that. Yes.

And he, in a way,

he and Pym are quite connected in that way,

there's a presentation of something.

There's an external and then behind that,

on the inside there's something much more turbulent,

much more broken, much more on fire.

And occasionally, you get to see these windows

where you get to look into this...

These lonely characters, I guess.

But is it fun to play someone who has magical power?

Yes! [both laughing]

Yeah and then to try and connect the magical powers

to something- Something real.

Honest and soulful. Comes from your body.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I think the key is to try and fill the silhouette

with something really honest so that the audience goes,

Wow, there's this...

He's the God of mischief.

He's immortal, but he's full of very human-

Yes, it's...

[Tom] He seems so human Feelings.

Yeah. Yeah.

The whole thing has been like a little essay

on identity actually.

You know, you say like, Diana has left you with this...

It was almost like a lesson in love or open-heartedness.

And it's similar in a way, like at the end of the show,

Loki finally understands that his purpose

is to give his own life for his friends

and the people he loves.

In the end, it was all about love.

And finally give him, I suppose that peace

which you hope everyone gets in life.

See you again soon.

[Elizabeth laughs]

Sooner than- Do you have my-

Sooner than 10 years.

Do you have my number that's still working?

I think so. Okay.

Is it the same number that...

Have you changed it?

Dunno.

I guess I'll find out. [both laughing]

I'll send someone text. Yeah.

Like, Hi, Debicki...

and I'll get response back saying,

this number has not been recognized.

Someone else wrap us.

See you sooner than 10 years.

We're gonna see each other in a second.

I see you sooner than 10 years.

Yeah. Let's do this again.

I hope so.

On a blue sofa near you. Yeah.

In less than 10 years time, Please.

[lively jazz music]