Tom Hiddleston, Vol. VII

Tom Hiddleston is back! One of our very favorites on Happy Sad Confused starts the year off right with Josh at this chat recorded at the 92nd Street Y. From the return of THE NIGHT MANAGER to the return of Loki in AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY to Tom's favorite Christmas movie, this is a fun one. Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes, video versions of the podcast, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 0:59Josh Horowitz?

  Is there a specific plan for the next time you're on stage, whether it's in the UK or here? Yes.

• 1:07Josh Horowitz?

  This year?

• 1:11Josh Horowitz?

  Is it Avengers: Doomsday the Musical?

• 1:16Josh Horowitz?

  Never say never.

• 1:19Speaker 03

  Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, Sad, Confused begins now.

• 1:26Josh Horowitz?

  Hey guys, it's Josh. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Today on the show, it's Tom Hiddleston. He is back on the show and in The Night Manager, Season 2 on Prime Video. Check it out and check out this amazing conversation. Taped live at the 92nd Street Y, our home for live events in New York City. So happy to start off the year just right with a perfect guest, perfect show, perfect audience. Tom is so eloquent. As I say in this conversation, he is as eloquent as they come, talking about his career, about acting, about what motivates him. Seems like he has an encyclopedic knowledge and memory of lines, of passages, that is on full display in this very...

• 2:10Josh Horowitz?

  Emotional, sweet, fun, Night at 92nd Street Y. So I know you guys are gonna enjoy it. As always, remember patreon.com/happysadconfused. That is your home for all things Happy Sad Confused. Early access, merch, you can ask guests questions, early access to our live events, of which we're gonna be doing a lot this year. Check it out, patreon.com/happysadconfused. Okay, I'm not gonna give much more preamble, except to say, Tom Hiddleston always delivers on screen and in podcasts. This is his seventh time on Happy Sad Confused. He is, he's a gem. Enough said. And my thanks to the amazing crowd that came out in New York City, to 92nd Street Y. It's gonna be another great year of live events. And just to remind you guys again,

• 2:55Josh Horowitz?

  Night Manager, Season 2, Prime Video. Check it out, I've watched the whole season, it's fantastic. Took about 10 years to get the second season. The way it was worth it. You'll enjoy it, and you'll enjoy this conversation. Here you go. Hi, everybody! How's it going? Welcome, everybody. My name's Josh Horowitz. Welcome to a live taping of Happy Sad Confused, the first one of 2026. Thank you for coming, guys. Um, I can't think of a better guest to kick off the new year than the one and only Tom Hiddleston. Are you ready to bring him out? What can I say about Tom Hiddleston? He is one of our greats, stage and screen.

• 3:37Josh Horowitz?

  He is as eloquent as he is talented. Last year was his year of dancing on screen. And onstage, I should say, too, yes, Much Ado About Nothing, and Life of Chuck. If you haven't seen Life of Chuck by now, check it out, amazing. And this year is a year where we get to return to some favorite characters of his. Later, later on in the year, we're gonna get to see Loki back in Avengers: Doomsday. We're very excited about that.

• 4:04Josh Horowitz?

  But we also have to give it up for the one and only Jonathan Pine. Ten years since since The Night Manager, of course, out of the brain of the great, late, great Jean-Luc Carre. We finally have a second season, and it is worth the wait. This new one is fantastic. I've been privileged enough to see all the episodes. You are going to love it. It debuts, don't be jealous, it's okay. You'll see it very soon. It debuts on Prime Video on January 11th. Without any further ado, let's dive right in with the one and only Tom Hiddleston, everybody.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  Good evening, everybody.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  Happy New Year.

• 4:59Josh Horowitz?

  Welcome back, Tom. Good to see you, buddy.

• 5:01Speaker 04

  Thank you very much. It's lovely to see you.

• 5:03Josh Horowitz?

  How were the holidays? Have you been binging? Did you watch Stranger Things, Heated Rivalry? What did you consume your...

• 5:11Josh Horowitz?

  Had to mention it, sorry.

• 5:13Speaker 04

  Not so much.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  I saw a couple of movies, I think we were just talking about. I saw F1, which I enjoyed enormously, thought it was fantastic. I was kind of bowled over by the cinematography, actually. Really, really brilliant. And The Smashing Machine, which I loved, and was really surprised by. I thought it was a very tender, quiet film with a very tender, quiet performance from Dwayne Johnson.

• 5:41Josh Horowitz?

  It's amazing to see somebody like that take risks. He doesn't have to do that kind of thing. He could do the blockbusters till the end of time.

• 5:47Speaker 04

  It was wonderful, wonderful, a wonderful movie. I'm trying to think of what else.

• 5:52Josh Horowitz?

  Do you have a holiday tradition film? Like, what's like, is it like, you know, Elf? Is it The Holiday? Like, what's like the ultimate holiday tradition film for you?

• 6:03Speaker 04

  Like, Die Hard.

• 6:10Josh Horowitz?

  Canonically a Christmas movie. Let's end that debate right now.

• 6:13Speaker 04

  It is a Christmas movie.

• 6:14Josh Horowitz?

  Of course.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  It closes with Let It Snow. It's a Christmas movie. It's up there, it shares the top ten Christmas movie number one slot with A Muppet Christmas Carol.

• 6:31Josh Horowitz?

  It's hard to beat Michael Caine in a lot of Muppets.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  You cannot use "Like the lamb, not the rat. Like the lamb, not the rat."

• 6:38Speaker 04

  It's classic. It's classic.

• 6:42Josh Horowitz?

  Have you, wait, were you in a Muppet movie? Did you share some time with a Muppet at all?

• 6:46Speaker 04

  That's a deep cut, Josh.

• 6:47Josh Horowitz?

  Right? I know you're...

• 6:49Speaker 04

  Muppets, Muppets Most Wanted.

• 6:50Josh Horowitz?

  I thought so.

• 6:53Speaker 04

  A quite extraordinary day on set. I shared the screen with Tina Fey.

• 7:01Speaker 04

  The great Tina Fey.

• 7:04Speaker 04

  Danny Trejo.

• 7:07Speaker 04

  Jermaine Clement. Ray Liotta.

• 7:10Josh Horowitz?

  Oh my god.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  And Kermit the Frog.

• 7:16Josh Horowitz?

  That's like that old SNL bit to The Jeopardy, "Who are five people that have never been in my kitchen?"

• 7:22Josh Horowitz?

  Amazing. Well, we've run out of time. We can't talk about The Night Manager. We're just talking about Muppets.

• 7:25Speaker 04

  Good night.

• 7:27Josh Horowitz?

  Let's talk about The Night Manager. Congratulations, man. I speak for everybody here. We love this series. We are so thrilled it is back. It took a minute. It took more than a minute.

• 7:38Speaker 04

  It took a ten-year minute.

• 7:41Josh Horowitz?

  Why the, I mean, you want to get it right, but in a nutshell, why do you think it took this long? Because there was a will right from the beginning.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  There was a will. So it's a really interesting story, actually, which is, we made the first one knowing full well that John Le Carre had written a novel called The Night Manager in 1993. And he had granted his consent for us to adapt it. And it was clear that we were going to adapt the novel and it would be complete. And as we were making it, there were no plans to develop a second season. And we opened The Night Manager at the Berlin Film Festival in 2016 in February.

• 8:25Speaker 04

  And it was an extraordinary night. It was the first time we had presented anything to a viewing public who were not part of the creation of the show. And all of us were there. Suzanne Abir, the director, Hugh Laurie, Elizabeth Debicki, Olivia Colman, Stephen Garrett, Simon Cornwell, Stephen Cornwell, who were Le Carre's sons, who produced The Night Manager, and Le Carre himself. And we went back to the hotel afterwards, excited and thrilled with how it had been received. And we sat down, and Le Carre himself leaned across the table with a twinkle in his eye and said, "Perhaps we might make some more."

• 9:07Speaker 04

  And we all thought, "Okay, but there's no more novel. There's no second book." And so there began a process of beginning to roll our sleeves up and think about how we might go about it. And he had many ideas. And what was complex about it was that every time, the world events were moving faster than the process of development. And I always felt that, we all felt, The Night Manager was resonant with the contemporary world, that you could feel that the world that we all live in was the world they inhabit. And actually, what happened is, we went through the pandemic.

• 9:51Speaker 04

  And David Cornwell, John Le Carre, David Cornwell is his real name, he and his wife got rather ill and sadly died in 2020. But they had, Le Carre had communicated his profound trust in his sons and a committed belief that there should be more Night Manager before he died. And actually, I was at the memorial service, an extraordinary service, in his remembrance. And his sons, Simon and Stephen, at that, it felt completely appropriate, they said, "You know, Dad loved the show, and he would love us to do more, so let's keep talking."

• 10:35Speaker 04

  And it was an amazing way to, for him, a legacy for him to leave all of us, I suppose. A tiny part of his extraordinary legacy. Anyway, cut to, not long after, David Farr, our great screenwriter, had a dream. Genuinely. And it was a dream where there was an image of a black car driving through a remote hillside towards a young boy. And it was basically a dream about Teddy. Teddy Dos Santos, played by the great Diego Calva. And where he places himself in the story. And he wrote to Simon and Stephen and said, I've had this idea. And it's about going back to Colombia, which is where the novel is set.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  And he wrote to me and we started to think about where this became a really exciting idea. And we started to develop it and he went away and worked on it. And then, you know, it takes time to develop six hours of series. And to cut a long story short, we knew we wanted to meet the bar and clear it. And we set a high standard for ourselves. And if we were going to go again, it had to be better. It had to be bigger, braver, bolder, deeper. We had to risk more. It had to cost more. And in terms of spirit, you know.

• 12:00Josh Horowitz?

  Tom's saying his fee went up a lot. No, I get it. And I can be not the first, but the first at least here on stage to say, you have succeeded. The show is fantastic. It is.

• 12:12Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 12:13Josh Horowitz?

  And the good news is that, well, we'll get to this, to tease this, but you're going to make more. I'm not going to have to wait 10 more years for a third season.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  No, no, it's going to come sooner.

• 13:02Speaker 05

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• 13:35Josh Horowitz?

  You allude to this, look, it is grounded in a different time. Ten years have passed. Who has changed more in the last 10 years? Jonathan Pine or Tom Hiddleston? Would you say?

• 13:44Speaker 04

  Oh, I don't know. Probably Tom Hiddleston.

• 13:47Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 04

  I would think. But then, that's the great thing about the 10 years, is the more we realized it would be 10 years, the more we leant into it. There've been 10 extraordinarily complex years in the world. We've all been through them. And we have, you know, there's been so much has happened, which, you know, the world in some senses is more fragmented and uncertain. Or perhaps that's just a point of view. But there've been so many political changes, cultural changes, environmental changes, untold international conflict, a pandemic. And we kept imagining, if you work at the center of the intelligence community, those 10 years are going to have been complex.

• 14:32Speaker 04

  And I love the idea that Jonathan Pine, at the end of season one, he's been, a fire has been ignited in his heart by Angela Burt, played by Olivia Colman. And that fire will not be extinguished until the end of his lifetime. And he's seen behind the curtain, he's a field agent now for the intelligence services for MI6. And there's no going back. And so there's a desire to understand the world as it really is, not the world as it appears to be. And there's that amazing line, "A man's life expands in direct proportion to how much truth he can stand."

• 15:16Speaker 04

  And Pine wants to know the truth. And that's a great thing I admire about him, which is, you know, many of us probably we're happy not knowing all the truth. With full ignorance sometimes, yeah. Yeah, and he just wants to understand the world. And so the fact that it's been ten years, he's older, he's wiser, he's curious, he's got this sharp desire, a keen curiosity to understand. But also, trauma. I believe it. Trauma from the first season, they were, that experience, he nearly died several times. People he trusted and loved died and nearly died.

• 15:57Speaker 04

  A woman he loved when it was in extreme danger, another woman died. He had to kill two people to defend the cause. And these are traumatic events, and those traumas haunt his nightmares. Richard Roper haunts his nightmares, literally. And so that was an interesting psychological starting point, is to see this man who's got more scars on the inside, more scars on the outside, with greater courage, greater competence, and more trauma, more vulnerability. And that tension between his competence and courage, and his vulnerability, really. We used, Georgie Banks-Davis, our amazing director, and I used to talk about, at the

• 16:41Speaker 04

  end of season one, Richard Roper, played by the great Hugh Laurie, is delivered to his captors. The dragon has been slain. And, but the dragon slayer can't go back. And a dragon slayer is only defined by the presence of dragons. And in a way, Pine needs the dragon. Otherwise, who is he? And what a fascinating character psychologically to play is actually, I think, he feels most alive.

• 17:13Speaker 04

  When he's at his most peril, in the most peril, in the most danger, in the most jeopardy. The closer his feet are to the fire, the more alive he feels, which is an interesting human characteristic, and not sure it's one we all share. I think a lot of us in danger would be like, get me out of here now. And I think he feels, so I find him fascinating. I love the character, I love and admire his moral courage. I want to be honest about what The Night Manager is about, really. It's about arms dealing, and always was. And that Roper is selling standard and chemical weapons under the counter to the highest bidder,

• 17:56Speaker 04

  and profiting in the millions and the billions, and lives a lovely charmed life that is paid for in blood and death. And Le Carré called him the worst man in the world. Of course, he's Hugh Laurie, so he's the most charming man in the world.

• 18:12Josh Horowitz?

  Helps, yeah.

• 18:13Speaker 04

  But that's the pleasure of him, is that he is, you sort of love Roper, and yet you're reminded occasionally of his cynicism. And Pine must resist it.

• 18:27Josh Horowitz?

  Right.

• 18:28Speaker 04

  And there's still this sense of, Pine has this extraordinary capacity to sacrifice and risk at great personal cost, because he believes that people should not make money from the bloodshed of innocent children. And, you know, when you put it like that, you think, well, that's an easy thing to stand for, but when you're in so deep, as deep as he is, it's, yeah, so I find his courage extraordinary, and his curiosity inspiring, and yet, I know I probably couldn't do it.

• 19:02Josh Horowitz?

  I love hearing about, you talked about having a bit of a relationship with the late Jean-Luc Le Carré. I mean, I grew up, my dad was a huge Le Carré fan, so I have such fondness for everything related to him, but like, you've had this experience throughout your career where like, the source author validates your work in some ways. I mean, recently Stephen King, who often doesn't like, come out and show up at a premiere, showed up for Life of Chuck.

• 19:31Josh Horowitz?

  I would imagine you interacted a bit over the years with the late Stan Lee. I mean, these are bizarre but amazing pinch-me circumstances, I would imagine.

• 19:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, I am so, as you say them, it's like, I can't believe they happened.

• 19:47Josh Horowitz?

  Did you have, did you share much time with Stan at all over the years?

• 19:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, I remember he, I remember he very, he turned up, I met him for the first time at the premiere of Thor in 2011.

• 20:01Speaker 04

  And he was such a gentleman, so kind, so generous, incredibly proud, I think. He was so generous about what we created, and yet it was his creation. So, yeah, really remarkable to have that

• 20:22Speaker 04

  open-hearted, I guess, generosity and hospitality, like, of course, you know. Play Loki, and this is, you know, he loved what we did and what Chris Hemsworth had done. Yeah, to be sitting next to Stephen King at the world premiere of The Life of Chuck was completely surreal.

• 20:42Josh Horowitz?

  Mark Hamill was there too, that was also.

• 20:44Speaker 04

  I know. Yeah, I was saying, what is going on?

• 20:49Speaker 04

  No, it's amazing to have their blessing.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  And Le Carre was really, it was extraordinary, it was very meaningful to me that he

• 21:01Speaker 04

  approved of what we had done. It was really all I cared about. I think I've told this story before, but before we started making the first season, there was a dinner we had with him. And we were all about to go away to Morocco where we shot a lot of the first season. Actually, I hadn't been sat next to him. At the end of it, sort of around tea and coffee time, I went up to him and pulled up a chair and said, David, as I said, his name is David Cornwell, is there anything you would like me to know before I start? And he said, and leant in with this kind of conspiratorial mischief. Of course, Tom, by now you will have guessed, Jonathan Pine is me.

• 21:47Speaker 04

  And now, he must be you. And but there was an exhortation to take it, own it, possess it, pour yourself into him with all your passion, all your commitment, all your vulnerability, all of your curiosity, all your courage. He's yours now. And I took that and ran with it. And then when I saw him afterwards and I, you know, to know that he had loved it, that he approved of what we'd made was major. And I used to run into him. It was an amazing thing. We lived not far from each other in London. And I used to run into him in the local park, training my puppy.

• 22:28Speaker 04

  You know, he was on his morning constitutional and I would run into him and he would be doing his morning walk and I'd be trying to teach my dog how to sit and heel and, you know, work on the recall. And he would, we would have these extraordinary conversations about world events. I get these, these hot takes from John Le Carre.

• 22:51Josh Horowitz?

  It's a perk of the job, to say the least.

• 22:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:53Josh Horowitz?

  I have a silly but real question related to taking on this role way back when. And I've joked with you, I've poked with you, as I have with many actors, about the whole James Bond of it all. But like, when you take on a role like this and it's offered to you, do you think about like, oh wait, is this gonna help or hurt my James Bond chances back then? Because, because that's real, isn't it? I mean, that, I mean, you were on that list, you still are on those lists, like...

• 23:17Speaker 04

  Honestly, honestly, at the time, I was, I, I just, I just, I read the script and I was like, I've never played a part like this before. And it was so, it just was, I just knew, it sounds crazy, but I was like, I know how to do this.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  And it's interesting because it's, at that time in my life, I had done a lot of, I hadn't done much contemporary work, as in I hadn't done lots of stories set in the contemporary world and a lot of period, a lot of elevated genre stuff. And this, the fact this was contemporary and was a thriller, I know, of course, there's the comparisons, but, but it was, it was, I just understood it. I thought this is so, I think it was the character himself, the tension between his exterior and his interior, that...

• 24:14Speaker 04

  As presented to me in that first episode of the first season.

• 24:19Speaker 04

  On the surface, immaculate, charming, collected, capable, calm. Like all great hoteliers, a great actor.

• 24:32Speaker 04

  So think about it next time you're staying in a hotel.

• 24:35Speaker 04

  But also he'd had been a British soldier in the army.

• 24:42Speaker 04

  So there's this tension between on the exterior, this still water, a kind of effortlessness, an immaculate, pristine face, and inside, a heart that's on fire with sort of moral courage and private vulnerability and solitude and pain and trauma. You know, the way Le Carre described him was he was the son of a cancer-ridden German beauty and a British sergeant killed in one of his country's many post-colonial wars.

• 25:25Speaker 04

  A graduate of a rainy archipelago of orphanages, foster homes, and cadet units, a sometime army wolf child with an even rainier unit in Northern Ireland. A caterer, chef, hotelier, itinerant, collector of other people's languages, perpetual escape from emotional entanglement, self-exiled creature of the night, and sailor without a destination. Who doesn't want to play that guy?

• 26:03Speaker 04

  You must read some great bedtime stories to your kids.

• 26:08Speaker 04

  They're very lucky. But what an extraordinary description. That's chapter three of the novel.

• 26:14Speaker 04

  Are you Rain Man? Where is this all coming from? What are you talking about? I've been playing his part for a long time. Yeah, so it but I obviously that's like stenciled into my brain because it's such a it's such a those phrases are so extraordinary. A collector of other people's languages, obviously, literally, but metaphorically. You know, someone who speaks Arabic, speaks French, speaks German, speaks Spanish, is able to move between to code switch to he's a chameleon.

• 26:43Speaker 04

  Someone very skilled at playing other people, as you've seen in that clip, he's he's inventing a persona, Matthew Ellis. He's he's and Matthew Ellis is is also a kind of the other side of Jonathan Pine. He's expensive, he's a reckless financier, he's he's cavalier, he's he's reckless and careless and has money to burn and money to waste. And and that actually flexes some it sort of exercises something in Pine that doesn't get exercised. But this ease between things, I think Le Carre was fascinated by that.

• 27:21Speaker 04

  He he was fascinated by the masks we wear and and also in spy thrillers. Spies have to pretend to be other people to extract information. They have to seduce in order to betray, they have to lie to get to the truth. And in so doing, it's easy to get lost in the maze. And and your performance has to be perfect, way more perfect than than than a professional actor. The stakes are a little higher, yeah. One slip up and you're a dead man.

• 27:58Speaker 04

  And I suppose Le Carre is asking, is there a center to a human being? Or are we or are we just roles that we play, you know? And and that's what that passage speaks to is this this a collector of other people's languages, an escape from emotional entanglement. You know, emotional entanglement, attachment, I need those things, I need attachments. And I and I hold them dear, they tether me to my very ordinary reality, which I cherish and which I love. And so I know who I am because of my attachments in the world, you know, human relationships with real human beings who have real names. A spy has none of that, no relationships, no attachments. Now we're now we're quoting Heat. We are. Yeah.

• 28:44Speaker 04

  Don't attach yourself to anything.

• 28:47Speaker 04

  You cannot walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner.

• 28:54Josh Horowitz?

  The truth is, we were kind of late getting on stage because we were watching a Heat trailer backstage. Not a joke.

• 29:00Speaker 04

  We're talking, this is absolutely true, we're talking about Heat 2. Which goes into production this year.

• 29:06Josh Horowitz?

  We'll be first in line.

• 29:07Speaker 04

  We will.

• 29:07Josh Horowitz?

  Is it a date? We'll be there?

• 29:09Speaker 04

  Hundred percent.

• 29:09Josh Horowitz?

  Alright. So, we did tease, uh, season three is go-

• 29:16Speaker 04

  By the way, I thought about Michael Mann a lot while making this.

• 29:18Josh Horowitz?

  I would imagine.

• 29:19Speaker 04

  Because, but there's something about, and I've talked about this before, I love Michael Mann. I came into contact with his films at a very formative time in my life. The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider. And what I love most about his work is the detail. There is such precise attention to detail. And the effect on me was that you just feel incredibly taken care of. That you can immerse yourself in this world, because everything is right. Everything is true, everything is authentic. What people are wearing, what people are doing, what they're saying, the car they're driving, the poster on the wall, the quality of the light.

• 30:02Speaker 04

  And that quality of detail and precision and rigor in a filmmaker is, is actually a mark of such respect for the audience. And so, we, you know, we took great care and took pains over the detail in this.

• 30:57Speaker 05

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• 31:29Josh Horowitz?

  We do know you are returning as Loki in Avengers: Doomsday.

• 31:36Josh Horowitz?

  That's true. This is a true fact.

• 31:39Speaker 04

  True.

• 31:43Josh Horowitz?

  He's so talkative until this subject. When last we saw our buddy, he was holding all the timelines together on that throne.

• 31:51Speaker 04

  True.

• 31:54Josh Horowitz?

  I guess his grip let up a little bit at some point?

• 31:57Speaker 04

  Wait a second.

• 32:01Josh Horowitz?

  Is he sitting on that throne the entire Avengers: Doomsday? Or does he stand up at some point?

• 32:11Speaker 04

  The last we saw him, he was sitting on the throne?

• 32:16Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 32:22Speaker 04

  What happens next? You'll have to wait and see.

• 32:24Josh Horowitz?

  Did you get an opportunity to do things? Look, we always talk every year or two when this happens. New stuff that you'd never gotten a chance to explore in the character?

• 32:33Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 32:38Josh Horowitz?

  Man, that's why they pay me the big bucks.

• 32:42Speaker 04

  It was very exciting. It was very exciting.

• 32:50Speaker 04

  It was very exciting.

• 32:52Josh Horowitz?

  Did you ever see? I mean, I'm sure you revere folks like Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  True.

• 33:02Josh Horowitz?

  Did you bump into them at Crafty? Did you at least?

• 33:06Speaker 04

  It was amazing to be, it was amazing to be in that ensemble. The, the, you know, there was a, sometimes there were two, this is, I mean, no spoilers here, two units running for, simply for economy. And so there would be one, maybe a scene being shot on, on the first unit and another scene being shot on the second unit, not the same actors. And so sometimes on the studio lot, you would cross paths with people and think, this is a pinch me moment.

• 33:40Josh Horowitz?

  Insane.

• 33:41Speaker 04

  It's a big cast. It must be a principal cast of, I don't know how many actors.

• 33:45Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 33:46Speaker 04

  There's a few, there's a few, yeah.

• 33:49Josh Horowitz?

  Here's, here's the last thing I'll, I'll ask, and I think you can say this at least, is like the circumstances of finding out, like, does that come through like a text, a phone call? Is it from the Russos, from Feige? Does it always happen differently at this point?

• 34:02Speaker 04

  Kevin Feige.

• 34:02Josh Horowitz?

  Feige.

• 34:03Speaker 04

  Kevin Feige and Luis Esposito.

• 34:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, very exciting. Gave me a call. Picked up the phone.

• 34:13Josh Horowitz?

  This, this, this note says, "Ask him more about Avengers, do you know?"

• 34:19Speaker 04

  They asked me a question, I said, "Yes. Hey, listen."

• 34:21Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  Robert Downey Jr. is playing Doctor Doom.

• 34:28Josh Horowitz?

  There's our exclusive.

• 34:29Speaker 04

  You heard it here first.

• 34:31Josh Horowitz?

  Did he kill it, from what you saw? Good performance?

• 34:34Speaker 04

  What?

• 34:34Josh Horowitz?

  Did he kill it?

• 34:35Speaker 04

  I can't hear your mic.

• 34:35Josh Horowitz?

  Okay, sorry, sorry. I, I, okay, here's, here's a new one for you. This is not Avengers related, don't worry. We've done the profoundly random questions over the years, the Happy Sad Confused. You've answered those already. I'm gonna try something different. This is the Happy Sad Confused Movie Matrix Questionnaire, okay?

• 34:51Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 34:51Josh Horowitz?

  Ready for this?

• 34:52Speaker 04

  I love it already.

• 34:52Josh Horowitz?

  This is perfect for you. Alien or aliens?

• 34:56Speaker 04

  Alien.

• 34:58Josh Horowitz?

  Interesting.

• 34:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:59Josh Horowitz?

  Okay.

• 35:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:00Josh Horowitz?

  Horror over action, I guess. Now, I mean, in that one, I'm saying, that's, that's.

• 35:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. The construction of Alien is perfect.

• 35:06Josh Horowitz?

  Okay.

• 35:07Speaker 04

  Absolutely perfect.

• 35:08Josh Horowitz?

  Do you have a favorite Spider-Man of all time?

• 35:18Speaker 04

  For reasons I cannot disclose.

• 35:23Speaker 04

  Tom Holland.

• 35:28Speaker 04

  No disrespect to Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield.

• 35:31Josh Horowitz?

  Of course.

• 35:32Speaker 04

  We're all kind of here because of Tobey Maguire in a way.

• 35:35Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 35:35Speaker 04

  Like.

• 35:36Josh Horowitz?

  Truly.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  The, uh, that film was the beginning of where we are, so.

• 35:41Josh Horowitz?

  Best comic book movie of all time.

• 35:43Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 35:45Speaker 04

  I don't know, but can I say one I'm in? No.

• 35:51Josh Horowitz?

  You want to take yourself out of it? Well, how about one you were not in? We'll, we'll.

• 35:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:54Josh Horowitz?

  You go out.

• 35:54Speaker 04

  Uh, okay. One I'm not in.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  Batman.

• 36:01Josh Horowitz?

  Tim Burton, classic.

• 36:02Speaker 04

  Batman.

• 36:06Speaker 04

  Directed by Tim Burton, starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson.

• 36:11Speaker 04

  That's my first instinct. That's, that's what comes to mind.

• 36:14Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah, I get it. That's tied to my childhood.

• 36:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:16Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah, to change my brain chemistry.

• 36:17Speaker 04

  I wouldn't have played, I don't think, I don't, truthfully, I don't think I would be, I would have played Loki without that film.

• 36:24Josh Horowitz?

  Oh, really?

• 36:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:25Josh Horowitz?

  In what way?

• 36:26Speaker 04

  Well, I think, I think that's sort of like, the way Jack Nicholson played the Joker was so, at the time in my life when I saw it, it just, it just kind of, it, it made such an impact on my imagination. But I understood he was the villain. But he was having such a good time. And I could, that could describe somebody else I know.

• 36:50Speaker 04

  And he was so charismatic and he was so inventive and so free. And, but I also loved Michael Keaton as, as Bruce Wayne and Batman, and I loved their dynamic. And I think probably when I came to play Loki for the first time, I had, you know, I consciously carried Jack Nicholson in mind. In fact, Kenneth Branagh and I used to have a shorthand because Loki was so complex and so, um, full of contradictions and charisma and charm and also vulnerability, that we would do different takes in tribute to different actors. So we did a Peter O'Toole take.

• 37:31Speaker 04

  Which wasn't an impersonation of Peter O'Toole, but it's sort of a tribute to his sincerity and vulnerability in films like The Lion in Winter. And then a Jack Nicholson take, where I was having the most fun in the room. And then a Clint Eastwood take, where whatever I was feeling would be hidden deep within me and you wouldn't be able to see it. So to give him different flavors of things in the edit.

• 37:59Josh Horowitz?

  I love that. Okay. Scariest movie ever made?

• 38:03Speaker 04

  The Shining.

• 38:08Josh Horowitz?

  The funniest movie ever made?

• 38:09Speaker 04

  Also, what's the one? The Descent?

• 38:14Josh Horowitz?

  Yes, yes.

• 38:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, the cave diving one.

• 38:18Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 38:19Speaker 04

  There's one shot in that, which I will never forget. It's so frightening. If you've seen the film, you know what I mean.

• 38:26Josh Horowitz?

  The funniest movie ever made?

• 38:30Speaker 04

  Gosh, the funniest movie ever made? That is a big question.

• 38:40Speaker 04

  What's the film that's made me laugh the most?

• 38:49Speaker 04

  When I saw it for the first time, I remember this very well. This came into my head. This is honest about what came into my imagination. I remember, I can't remember how old I was. I remember watching Ace Ventura for the first time. And I was just cried laughing. I literally cried laughing for the entire film. I was like, this is next level. I've never, this is Funniest Man Alive.

• 39:16Josh Horowitz?

  The reboot starring Tom Hiddleston very soon.

• 39:19Speaker 04

  Is it the funniest movie of all time? Maybe not. The Producers is pretty funny.

• 39:22Josh Horowitz?

  I go Young Frankenstein.

• 39:23Speaker 04

  Young Frankenstein.

• 39:24Josh Horowitz?

  That's up there. I mean, I know there are a lot here, but movie you can quote backwards and forwards. You've got a lot in that brain. But what's the movie really, like, just in your bones could recite if I asked you to?

• 39:40Speaker 04

  God. Mary Poppins?

• 39:43Josh Horowitz?

  Okay.

• 39:45Speaker 04

  That is unassailable. That is a classic. Yeah, it's so beautiful, that film. I probably, yeah, that one's well-known.

• 39:57Josh Horowitz?

  And finally...

• 39:57Speaker 04

  Die Hard.

• 39:58Josh Horowitz?

  Die Hard.

• 40:00Speaker 04

  It all comes back to Die Hard in the end.

• 40:03Josh Horowitz?

  What's your go-to movie theater snack?

• 40:06Speaker 04

  Salted popcorn. Yeah. Keep it simple.

• 40:10Josh Horowitz?

  Keep it simple. Okay, some questions...

• 40:12Speaker 04

  What is the funniest movie ever made?

• 40:20Josh Horowitz?

  Wow, we got Clue, Lewis, Clue, yeah.

• 40:24Speaker 04

  Analyze this. Some like it hot.

• 40:30Josh Horowitz?

  We got Step Brothers comes up?

• 40:32Speaker 04

  Step Brothers, excellent. Excellent.

• 40:36Josh Horowitz?

  Okay, now it's turning like into anarchy here, guys.

• 40:40Speaker 04

  Anchorman?

• 40:41Josh Horowitz?

  Yes. Will Federer at his best, it's hard to beat.

• 40:44Speaker 04

  The Naked Gun?

• 40:47Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 40:48Speaker 04

  Maybe?

• 40:48Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah. Some questions from our lovely audience.

• 40:52Speaker 04

  There's a sequence in The Naked Gun...

• 40:54Josh Horowitz?

  I'm happy to talk Naked Gun.

• 40:57Speaker 04

  Where he's trying to break into the apartment.

• 40:59Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 41:00Speaker 04

  And he discovers the letter, which is the evidence he needs. Leslie Nielsen, and he takes out a Zippo lighter to see the writing better.

• 41:12Josh Horowitz?

  Starts the whole fire, right?

• 41:13Speaker 04

  There is a letter, and the letter catches fire. The whole apartment catches fire, the curtains, the piano, the sprinklers.

• 41:21Speaker 04

  Eternal. That is an eternal piece of footage.

• 41:25Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 41:26Speaker 04

  And I cry every time, from laughter.

• 41:29Josh Horowitz?

  Lebowski?

• 41:30Speaker 04

  Lebowski.

• 41:31Josh Horowitz?

  Come on. I was privileged enough to see you in betrayal, both in London and here. I missed Much Ado, which was so acclaimed. I know, guys. Any chance of Much Ado coming here, or are there other...

• 41:47Speaker 04

  You never know.

• 41:49Josh Horowitz?

  Is there a specific plan for the next time you're on stage, whether it's in the UK or here?

• 41:54Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 41:57Josh Horowitz?

  This year?

• 42:01Josh Horowitz?

  Is it Avengers: Doomsday the Musical?

• 42:06Speaker 04

  Never say never.

• 42:09Speaker 04

  No, yeah, I'm sure it'll be, I'm sure we'll find out soon. I just, I actually can't, I can't, I don't want to get, it's not, I'm not fully, um...

• 42:19Speaker 04

  I don't, I suppose I'm not, actually not fully, I don't feel I have the authority.

• 42:23Josh Horowitz?

  I love these rare moments when he can't actually speak. It's so...

• 42:29Josh Horowitz?

  So powerful. I feel great.

• 42:31Speaker 04

  Always take me there, yeah. No, I don't have the authority to share the information just yet, but I'm sure we all will at some point.

• 42:39Josh Horowitz?

  We were talking before about like the masks that we all adopt, how Jonathan Pine adopts. Do you apply that to, does the work ever inform that? Meaning, I guess, do you ever adopt a mask of a character out in the real world? Are you the kind of person that would take Jonathan Pine, or Loki, or whoever, into Starbucks or into the real world? Does that, is that helpful for you as an actor, or is that a bridge too far? It's not new.

• 43:03Speaker 04

  I think, yeah, I don't know if I get away with it.

• 43:06Josh Horowitz?

  Well, Loki would be tough in a Starbucks, let's be real.

• 43:10Speaker 04

  Sometimes I try, I, this is ridiculous, but sometimes I try. People will say, like, I don't know, I'm filling up, I'm at the gas station, right? I'm filling up the car and it's late and, um, it's, you know, the context is entirely normal, right? And I'll go and I'll pay for the thing and I'll, you know, get a snack or whatever and a bottle of water and the guy behind the counter will go,

• 43:38Speaker 04

  "You look, you look just..." Has anyone ever told you, "You look just like Tom Hiddleston?" And I try, I go, "Yeah, I get that all the time." You know, it's funny, you're not the first person to say this, like, "Am I not the first person to say that?" "Yeah, it's, people, people do say that." And you go, and then eventually they're like, "But are you?" And I go, "But no, but people, people say I do." And it's, it's a ridiculous game.

• 44:02Josh Horowitz?

  And you're like, "I'm way taller than him, please."

• 44:08Speaker 04

  Should say that. Should. But to your, to be serious for your point, like what's interesting is that you're bringing up is like, you know, um, I think probably the, uh, privilege I feel I'm afforded as an actor is that I get to play all of these people. And that, that I get to explore myself in all of them. And, but it's a very, it's an imagined reality. So the boundaries feel very safe. Um, but, but of course, these are, you know, these are, I'm, they're aspects of myself in all these characters I obviously couldn't do it.

• 44:50Speaker 04

  And, or if they're not aspects of myself, that I'm stretching myself with, with imagination to get there. Um, and it's such an interesting, I find it such an interesting thing to reflect on occasionally, which is that, um, you know, there's that phrase, the body keeps the score. You know, um, and sometimes it's a, it's a discipline to remind myself that, that if the tears I shed are, belong to me, they're my tears. But they are the character's imagined, uh, tears, if that makes sense. Um, or if, if a character's charming, or, um, or open-hearted or generous,

• 45:33Speaker 04

  that's, that's my heart, that's my generosity, it's my charm. If a character is angry, that's my anger. Um, it's not real, it's not based in reality. It's, it's a response to something imagined. Um, or, or if a character like Pine, for example, I find his curiosity is, is mine. Um, is he, is, his desire to understand the world as it really is, not the world as it appears to be, is something I share with him, but I don't have his resources or his competence, and I find his courage inspiring. So the whole, the privilege I feel as an actor is that, is that I get to explore the rain, the breadth and range of the experience of being alive.

• 46:17Speaker 04

  And hopefully that that exploration is something that resonates for you, for the audience, that we all, through art and through stories, explore the breadth and range in the experience of being alive. And that's why it matters, it's why it's always mattered to me as a member of the audience. And I feel other artists and other actors have done that on my behalf.

• 46:40Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 46:41Speaker 04

  And shown me facets of humanity that I didn't know existed, or told me stories about the world and about us as a people, as a, you know, as human beings, that I didn't know or understand. Yeah, so it's like, the masks, in a way, it's like, not to get too overly sincere, what's the, it's the E.M. Forster quotation, when he talks about connection, that stories that emerge from human imagination carry the power of connection.

• 47:17Speaker 04

  Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted and seen at their height. I think I'm paraphrasing, but the sense of connect, connection is the only reason for doing anything. And stories connect you to other human beings.

• 47:39Josh Horowitz?

  Well, it is, that deserves applause, yes. It is the mark of an actor that's kind of achieved a certain kind of, more than competence, that's not the appropriate word, but like, that can fully bring all of themselves to a character and also find that balance and find that, you know, you've talked before, but like, you have a rich life, you have a rich life outside of work, that you couldn't be a spy because you want that other life. And to be able to kind of like, still be able to give fully of yourself in the range of human emotion and connection, and to yet still be able to go home and live a life, that's the ultimate dream.

• 48:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, and of course, it's creativity, it's an experiment. As I say, these are, these are characters that exist between, onstage, or they exist on set between action and cut. And I...

• 48:36Speaker 04

  Cherish the discipline it takes to know that they stay there. And I go home to my real life with my real responsibilities and my real attachments, again, which I hold dear. And that's who I really am. And like any artist, you know, a composer, a writer, or a painter, the work is about playing with an idea. It's about giving an idea shape or clarity and seeing how it lands. So it's a... But it's an interesting journey always because it's like it's like traveling to a foreign country. And you'll...

• 49:21Speaker 04

  And actually, hopefully, the... A curiosity and understanding that maybe in this other place, they don't do things. It's not the same. They have different cultures and different practices and different customs and food. And there are things that they do differently, but there are things that they do the same. And you hopefully return home retaining that expansion with a wider, deeper understanding of human beings. And that's how I feel about playing characters is it's like it's like traveling away from home and hopefully at the end of it, I stop playing the character, but I retain the expansion.

• 50:04Speaker 04

  And the whole art of it is really an act of compassion. Is it's trying to have deep compassion for human beings, be they real or imagined, so that the stories we tell and the performances we give can resonate with you, can resonate with the audience and that we can have more compassion for each other and for our deeply individual stories and see how much we share.

• 50:43Josh Horowitz?

  I feel like every answer is a mic drop moment for the night, but that is the mic drop moment for the night. I wish every other actor was half as eloquent as Tom Hiddleston. It would make my job a lot easier.

• 50:56Josh Horowitz?

  He's the best at what he does. He's the best at talking about what he does. Excuse me. Congratulations, man. Season two of The Night Manager, January 11th on Prime Video. Spread the good word. Give it up for the one and only Tom Hiddleston, everybody.

• 51:23Speaker 03

  And so ends another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't prepared to do this by Josh.

• 51:43Speaker 06

  Hey, first time? Love those sneakers. Thanks. Depop. Got them cheap. Oh, yeah? Okay, downloading. There's loads on there. Wow. Wish I'd had this last week. I just paid full price for mine. Right? And you can't get these ones anywhere. Find what you want for less on Depop. Sneakers. Worn once. Excellent condition.