Tom Hiddleston can't believe he is still playing Loki: 'When I die, I don't'

By Megan Armstrong | Last updated 7/13/21

Tom Hiddleston thought his days as Loki were behind him when the character succumbed at the hands of Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), but Marvel Studios just keeps bringing him back.

"I really did think it was the end," the 40-year-old actor explained on Monday's The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. "I mean, I thought it was the end a couple of times, to be honest. There was once after Thor: The Dark World, and then after Avengers: Infinity War, which you'll remember the opening few minutes of that film felt pretty ... conclusive."

"There was a big round of applause on set and lots of, you know, loving notes from the studio saying, 'We love you, Tom, and come and see us anytime. You'll always be part of the family,'" he continued. "And I hung up my boots and said goodbye. ... That's the thing about Loki is—what do they say about Loki? He's like, 'I'm Loki, and when I die, I don't.'"

Hiddleston reprised the role of the God of Mischief in 2019's Avengers: Endgame and continues to portray him in Disney Plus' Loki, which debuted last month. The Londoner tried his best to succinctly sum up the series plot to Fallon—an impossible task for anything under the MCU umbrella:

"So, in Avengers: Endgame, you'll remember the Avengers from 2019 go back in time to 2012, and there's a whole situation with two Tony Starks. And Antman is there. And they make The Hulk take the stairs. And he burst through a hallway and bumps into 2019 Tony. And the suitcase with the Tesseract goes flying, and it rolls to Loki's feet. And he picks up the Tesseract, and he disappears in a puff of smoke, and where he goes next is where we start. He sort of improvises for a bit, and then he's apprehended by this organization called the TVA, which is an organization that claims to govern the order of time."

Not bad, but here's the trailer just in case Middleton lost you:

Hiddleston stars opposite Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino across six episodes. The two-time Emmy nominee debuted as Loki in 2011's Thor, and he has carried the role through six films before getting his own series.

More Loki is coming, too, as Marvel's animated series What If? is due to Disney Plus in August.

Watch Hiddleston's full Tonight Show appearance below.