An email that Tom Hiddleston sent to Joss Whedon after the Buffy creator gave him his first draft of the Avengers script has found its way online by way of a new Whedon biography. Joss Whedon: The Biography, available next month, contains a transcript of the gushing thank-you note.
Despite raking in an incredible $US1.5 billion at the box office — making it one of the highest-grossing movies of all time — and garnering rave acclaim from critics and fans alike, it wasn’t always a foregone conclusion that The Avengers would be a mammoth success.
In fact, as CraveOnline reported earlier this month, Whedon thought the initial script, penned by The Incredible Hulk screenwriter Zak Penn, was garbage. After impressing Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige with a five-page treatment, Whedon was given total control of a new script.
The first draft of that script, and in particular Whedon’s nuanced and “juicy” depiction of Thor‘s brother Loki, so affected Hiddleston that he wrote a lengthy and incredibly eloquent email to the director, thanking him for “writing me my Hans Gruber.”
Check out Hiddleston’s full email, as well as Whedon’s awesome response, via Business Insider, below.
Tom Hiddleston’s Email To Joss Whedon
Joss,
I am so excited I can hardly speak.
The first time I read it I grabbed at it like Charlie Bucket snatching for a golden ticket somewhere behind the chocolate in the wrapper of a Wonka Bar. I didn’t know where to start. Like a classic actor I jumped in looking for LOKI on every page, jumping back and forth, reading words in no particular order, utterances imprinting themselves like flash-cuts of newspaper headlines in my mind: “real menace”; “field of obeisance”; “discontented, nothing is enough”; “his smile is nothing but a glimpse of his skull“; “Puny god” …
… Thank you for writing me my Hans Gruber. But a Hans Gruber with super-magic powers. As played by James Mason … It’s high operatic villainy alongside detached throwaway tongue-in-cheek; plus the “real menace” and his closely guarded suitcase of pain. It’s grand and epic and majestic and poetic and lyrical and wicked and rich and badass and might possibly be the most gloriously fun part I’ve ever stared down the barrel of playing. It is just so juicy.
I love how throughout you continue to put Loki on some kind of pedestal of regal magnificence and then consistently tear him down. He gets battered, punched, blasted, side-swiped, roared at, sent tumbling on his back, and every time he gets back up smiling, wickedly, never for a second losing his eloquence, style, wit, self-aggrandisement or grandeur, and you never send him up or deny him his real intelligence…. That he loves to make an entrance; that he has a taste for the grand gesture, the big speech, the spectacle. I might be biased, but I do feel as though you have written me the coolest part.
… But really I’m just sending you a transatlantic shout-out and first-bump, things that traditionally British actors probably don’t do. It’s epic.
Joss Whedon’s Response To Tom Hiddleston
Tom, this is one of those emails you keep forever. Thanks so much. It’s more articulate (and possibly longer) than the script. I couldn’t be more pleased at your reaction, but I’ll also tell you I’m still working on it … Thank you again. I’m so glad you’re pleased. Absurd fun to ensue.
Best, (including uncharacteristic fist bump), joss.
