He clearly enjoys the shapeshifting aspect of his profession – to excess, perhaps. While he was in the early rounds of auditioning for the Marvel comic adaptation, along with every other blond English-speaking actor in the world' it was suggested to him that, as he was being considered for the part of Thor, he might bulk up a bit.
Accordingly, he followed a strict exercise regime and ate nothing but chicken, as bodybuilders do. Chicken salad for every meal. And sometimes the odd egg.'
After six weeks of this, he received a phone call from the producers telling him they wanted him in the film, only playing the part of Loki, Thor's lean and hungry-looking brother. I guess it was a relief to go back to my natural body shape,' he says, admirably unfazed by the whole experience.
He's delighted to be playing Loki, anyway, the god of mischief (which is the one you want to be, isn't it?'). Anthony Hopkins is playing his father, Odin.
In a perfect Hopkins accent, Tom recounts a recent message, relayed via Branagh: Tell Tom I don't like fava beans, and I'm not a complete psycho…'. To cap it all off, Tom loved the Marvel Superpower Top Trumps card game as a child. 'If you went back and told the eight-year-old Tom this is what you will be doing, I'd have been…' Words fail him.