Steven Spielberg Almost Brought Tom Hiddleston to Tears When They Worked Together
Steven Spielberg first met Marvel star Tom Hiddleston for his World War 1 film War Horse. And according to Hiddleston, collaborating with the filmmaker was an experience he isn’t likely to forget.
Tom Hiddleston almost cried after his conversation with Steven Spielberg
Hiddleston and Spielberg first worked together on the 2011 feature War Horse. The movie was based on a novel of the same name. It centered around a horse named Joey that was purchased by the British Army during World War I, leading to a grand adventure.
Hiddleston ended up playing one of the captains who ended up buying the horse. Like many actors, Hiddleston grew up as a fan of Spielberg at the time. So when Spielberg personally contacted the actor for War Horse, he was both understandably nervous and excited.
“I’ll never forget it – time slowed down,” Hiddleston once said according to HuffPost. “I got a call from my agent saying Steven wanted to meet me. I thought it had to be a joke. The whole thing felt like a movie, driving to see him past all the studios with the tours and everyone on the buses. Then there’s this little hut where his office is… and I remember saying to myself, ‘Just be yourself.’”
After a conversation with Hiddleston, the Indiana Jones director offered him a part in his feature right there on the spot.
“I met his assistant first, she made me a coffee, bizarrely we got talking about Guinness. Suddenly he walked in, saying ‘I love Guinness!’ So, there we were talking about Guinness, then the First World War, my family and stuff. Quite suddenly after about an hour, he said, ‘I’d like you to do it.’ I was stunned – I had to ask him to repeat it,” he said.
In an interview with Independent, Hiddleston added that the meeting left him quite emotional.
“I nearly whooped, wept, laughed and cried,” he said.
Tom Hiddleston was worried about being the weakest link in ‘War Horse’
Working with one of his idols came with a lot of responsibility for Hiddleston. He found himself not only wanting to do a good job, but not wanting to let the veteran filmmaker down.
“The pressure I put on myself to get it right,” he said. “I first saw Raiders of the Lost Ark when I was eight, so I wanted to be ready for anything he threw at me. I wanted him to be able to ask, ‘Tom, I want you to lead a charge of 120 horses…’ I didn’t want to be the weak link, a problem person, but because everybody is feeling like that, there probably are no problem people.”
But given Spielberg’s experience, Hiddleston took the opportunity to learn as much as he could about the Jaws director. One thing Hiddleston picked up on was Spielberg’s close attention to detail.
“He’s a master craftsman,” Hiddleston once told MTV News. “And what I learned from him, really, is that he’s so impeccably prepared.”
This ability allowed Spielberg to make memorable movie moments that weren’t even planned, which further impressed Hiddleston.
“He just has to be sharp enough and on point enough that he’s there to catch it and to keep his crew nimble and fleet of foot,” Hiddleston said. “So that if he suddenly sees something like the sun’s in a particular place or something’s happening between two actors, or in this case, an actor and a horse, that he can capture that, the beauty of the accident, and it lasts forever on film.”
Why Steven Spielberg cast Tom Hiddleston for ‘War Horse’
Hiddleston wasn’t yet the star he is now by the time of War Horse’s release. But before his star-power received a sizable boost from Marvel, Hiddleston did enough significant parts to catch the Oscar-winner‘s eye.
“Tom, I didn’t know that well. But I saw him in a couple of smaller parts and films, and thought he was kind of the reincarnation of Errol Flynn. And thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have the first person that purchases Joey from the father be this sort of dashing, classy, classic British hero,’” Spielberg once told Celebs.
