Tom Hiddleston

Thomas William Hiddleston (born 9 February 1981) is an English actor. He gained international fame portraying Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), appearing in Thor (2011), The Avengers (2012), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and in the Disney+ series Loki (2021). He started his film career in the Joanna Hogg films Unrelated (2007) and Archipelago (2010). He then portrayed F. Scott Fitzgerald in Woody Allen's romantic comedy Midnight in Paris (2011), and appeared in Steven Spielberg's War Horse (2011), ​That year he won the Empire Award for Best Male Newcomer and was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award. He continued working with auteurs in independent films including Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea (2012), Jim Jarmusch's romantic vampire film Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) and Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak (2015). He also starred in Ben Wheatley's action film High Rise, and played the troubled country music singer Hank Williams in the biopic I Saw The Light. The film Kong: Skull Island (2017) marked his first big-budget leading role outside the MCU.Hiddleston made his stage debut in Journey's End in 1999. He continued acting in theatre including the West End productions of Cymbeline (2007) and Ivanov (2008). He won the Olivier Award for Best Newcomer in a Play for his role in Cymbeline and was also nominated for the same award for his role as Cassio in Othello (2008). Hiddleston starred as the title character in a production of Coriolanus (2013–14), winning the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor and receiving a nomination for the Olivier Award for Best Actor. He made his Broadway debut in a 2019 revival of Harold Pinter's classic drama Betrayal, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.Hiddleston's also known for his performances in television including his part in the 2012 BBC series The Hollow Crowns Henry IV and Henry V. Hiddleston starred in and executive-produced the AMC / BBC limited series The Night Manager (2016), for which he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie and Outstanding Limited Series, and won his first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film.

Hiddleston resides in the Belsize Park area of north-west London.Hiddleston dated English actress Susannah Fielding from 2008 to 2011 after they met while filming an episode of Wallander which Hiddleston was a series regular on. In 2016, Hiddleston dated American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift for several months. He is currently in a relationship with English actress and writer Zawe Ashton, whom he starred with in the 2019 Broadway play Betrayal.

Thomas William Hiddleston was born on 9 February 1981 in the Westminster district of London, to Diana Patricia (née Servaes) Hiddleston, an arts administrator and former stage manager, and Dr. James Norman Hiddleston, a physical chemist and former managing director of a biotechnology company that liaised with Oxford University. His father is from Greenock, Scotland and his mother is from Suffolk. His younger sister, Emma, is also an actress, whilst his older sister, Sarah, is a journalist in India. Through his mother, he is a great-grandson of Vice Admiral Reginald Servaes and a great-great-grandson of food producer Sir Edmund Vestey. His paternal grandfather, Alexander, served in the Royal Artillery and worked as a plater in the shipyards. He shares the same name as his great-great uncle, Tom Hiddleston, a shipyard plater from Greenock and a member of Royal Artillery's 51st (Highland) Division, who died after the Battle of the Somme and whose name is engraved in the Broomhill war memorial.Hiddleston was raised in Wimbledon in his early years, and later moved to a village near Oxford. He began boarding at Windlesham House School at age seven, moving to the Dragon School in Oxford a year later. His parents divorced when he was twelve. Regarding his parents' divorce, he said, "I like to think it made me more compassionate in my understanding of human frailty."At age thirteen, Hiddleston started at Eton College, again as a boarder. He continued on to Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge, where he earned a double first in Classics. During his second term at Cambridge, he was seen in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire by talent agent Lorraine Hamilton of Hamilton Hodell. He proceeded to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, from which he graduated in 2005.