It's not out of the ordinary for an actor to go through some sort of extreme just to ensure a character or a scene looks authentic, but what Tom Hiddleston did was bordering on Loki-crazy.
Hiddleston said that when they were shooting the fight scene, "Joss [Whedon, the director] came over and said, 'Guys, I'm just not really buying it. You need to sell it more. You either need to hit each other harder or you need to react bigger.'" As they readied for the next take, Hiddleston took a moment to confer with Hemsworth. "I said to Chris, 'Dude, just hit me. Just hit me because I'm protected here and it's fine.' He's like, 'Are you sure?' I was like, 'Yeah, it will look great. Just go for it.'"
Cameras then started to roll, and Hiddleston said, "[Chris] really went for it and he's just pummeling me in the chest and elbowing me in the face and Joss came back after that take and went, 'We got it.
It's great.'"
I asked Hemsworth about his reaction to actually hitting his costar. Hemsworth chuckled and recalled there was a moment when Hiddleston doubled over a bit when a body blow connected. He told me, "I turned to the crew and I said, 'He told me to do that! You all heard that.'"
We all know these moments can go terribly terribly wrong. Just last month
Christopher Judge recounted a moment while filming
The Dark Knight Rises that was quite similar. Judge's fight partner, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, was asked to make his punches more believable, really sell it, and sell it he did. JGL unleashed what I presume was a mighty right hook that clocked the former
Stargate actor in the head so hard that he had to be rushed to the hospital.
Marvel's The Avengers picks up when an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security. And Nick Fury, director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. With director Joss Whedon at it's helm, and an ensemble cast including Chris Evans (Steve Rogers), Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark), Chris Hemsworth (Thor Odinson), Jeremy Renner (Clint Barton), Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner), Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff), Clark Gregg (Agt. Phil Coulson), Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), with Tom Hiddleston (Loki), and Stellan Skarsgard (Professor Erik Selvig), the film releases worldwide May 4, 2012!
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