Tom Hiddleston watches his original Thor audition with Jimmy Fallon

Jimmy Fallon and his dear friends at Marvel Studios surprised Tom Hiddleston with a blast from the past on The Tonight Show this week. While the actor was out promoting his Broadway play Betrayal, Fallon was able show Hiddleston footage from his original audition for 2011’s Thor.

As Hiddleston explained to Fallon, he didn’t audition for Loki. He only ever auditioned for Thor. “At the time, they were looking for less well-established actors so the audience wouldn’t have an association,” he recalled. “They wanted people to see these new characters, these new actors. The remit was, if you’re over 6 foot and you’ve got blond hair, you could come and have a pop at it.”

The footage Fallon revealed was glimpsed in a behind-the-scenes video extra on the home release of Thor: The Dark World, but here’s a full, unedited clip of Hiddleston in action as Thor, complete with sound. Watch at the 2:26 mark in the video above.

“I think we can all agree that they cast the right actor,” Hiddleston said after reliving that moment with the audience.

He will now reprise his Loki role for the Loki Disney+ series, which he says will begin filming next year. This new installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will follow the Loki revealed in the alternate timeline in Avengers: Endgame and pick up after he escaped with the Tesseract.

Related content:

• Tom Hiddleston and Charlie Cox swap Marvel roles for Halloween outing
• Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Cox, and Zawe Ashton command a smart, stripped down Betrayal
• Tom Hiddleston teases Loki Disney+ series: ‘There’s so much to explore’