‘Loki’ EP Kevin R. Wright Talks Pompeii: Out of Time, Tom Hiddleston

In 2018, former Marine turned Marvel Studios executive Kevin R. Wright pitched Tom Hiddleston the foundational idea for a Disney+ Loki series. Neither of them could have known it at the time, but they were about to become creative brothers-in-arms for the next eight years (and counting). Their collaboration went so well that it produced Marvel’s finest TV show to date and fulfilled the original promise of the MCU’s pivot to streaming. As a result, Hiddleston turned the tables and pitched Wright an idea of his own.

“I said to Kevin, ‘I would love to keep working with you. I love our partnership. I love how we think. I love how we make things,’” Hiddleston tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s almost like having a partner in doubles tennis. He’s got all the shots I haven’t got, and I can cover the corners he can’t cover. We even finish each other’s sentences.”

Wright, who held the same view regarding their partnership, then left Marvel Studios to co-found a production company together known as Ithaca. Hiddleston, having degreed in ancient Greek and Roman studies, often references the home island of Greek hero Odysseus during the tail end of productions. What led the now actor-producer to major in “the Classics” at the University of Cambridge was a life-altering trip to Italy in 1998. There, the British 17-year-old toured the archaeological remnants of Pompeii and Herculaneum, two out of a half-dozen Roman cities that were destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Thousands of people were killed, and 100 victims remain on display at the preserved site by way of plaster casts.  

“Because of the preservation of the town and all aspects of their way of life, the bread, now carbonized, is still in the oven at Herculaneum,” Hiddleston says to vividly describe the archaeological park of Pompeii. “The family dog is still chained to the wall trying to escape. The cribs and cradles that babies slept in are still there. The children’s graffiti and hand prints are still on the walls. So, in that moment, I felt the distance of 2000 years fall away as if the volcano happened yesterday.”

That’s exactly the feeling that Wright and Hiddleston’s new Nat Geo series, Pompeii: Out of Time, conveys. On the heels of Loki, National Geographic approached Hiddleston about a nonfiction series, and feeling inspired by his fictional brother Chris Hemworth’s own exploits for Nat Geo, he couldn’t resist the idea of revisiting Pompeii. The kicker is that he and Wright had already taken the idea for a test drive on the second episode of Loki when Loki and Mobius (Owen Wilson) time-travel to Pompeii moments before the disaster commenced.

“That Loki scene certainly opened the door,” Wright shares. “Very early on, we both knew that people were going to connect the dots. And we said, ‘Let’s not shy away from it.’”

As the host of the three-episode docudrama, Hiddleston investigates the Mount Vesuvius eruption by consulting professors, archaeologists and psychologists in order to discover what happened to three real Romans: a teenage blacksmith apprentice, a businesswoman and an unnamed Praetorian soldier. As Hiddleston uncovers new information, he revises and replays their dramatized stories. “These were real people with real lives who had the same concerns as we do,” Hiddleston says. “So we tried to create this intimate dialogue between the past and the present to understand who we are now.”

Going forward, Team Ithaca will certainly be pursuing plenty of fictional stories, but they’re also excited about seeing what else they can do in the documentary arena. “It feels like we’ve unlocked a new language and technique in this nonfiction space. It was like creating a multiverse,” Wright says. “So I’d be lying if I said we haven’t already talked about all the other types of stories we’d want to tell in this realm.”

Below, during a conversation with THR, Wright, along with a couple additions from Hiddleston, discusses the origin of Pompeii: Out of Time, as well as the future of the Loki character.

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In the second episode of the Loki television series, Loki and Mobius time-travel to Pompeii right before Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. Was this episode a backdoor pilot for Nat Geo’s Pompeii: Out of Time? 

WRIGHT (Laughs.) I would like to say yes. Maybe in Tom’s great brain, he had this planned all along, but that Loki scene certainly opened the door. Everybody at Disney and Nat Geo saw the fun in using Loki as a jumping-off point and a connecting of the dots. [Writer’s Note: Hiddleston addressed the sequence of events in an exclusive THR interview from July 16.]

As Tom investigates the stories of three real Romans during the Mount Vesuvius eruption, he even uses a phantom time twister. He’ll rewind or pause time with the wave of his hand, which is similar to the time mechanics on Loki. Why did you guys want to incorporate your past into this investigation of the past? 

WRIGHT We held a traditional writers’ room for Pompeii: Out of Time, which is strange for this type of show. But very early on, we both knew, and said pretty loudly, that people were going to connect the dots to the Pompeii episode of Loki. And the last time they saw Loki, he was maybe becoming the God of Stories or the Weaver of Stories. I don’t think we wanted to overweigh the show with Loki references, but because of the storytelling devices we used on Loki, we knew that people would go along with them here. You can start telling a story and go, “Oh, we got that wrong. Let’s try that again.” 

Audiences took that on so well in Loki as we were doing some complex multiversal storytelling. It felt like a shortcut, and we said, “Let’s not shy away from it. This is what people on Disney+ are largely going to know Tom from.” It’s an effective way of storytelling, and we’re both interested in time, so it just felt right for a history show. History is constantly being rewritten as we learn more about it, and it just felt like a fun, efficient way to tell this 24-hour story. To jump around and tell all these various stories, how do you do that? Well, we can pause time because it’s Tom Hiddleston.

Tom’s fictional brother, Chris Hemsworth, also has a Nat Geo show called Limitless. Did Chris’ show provide any impetus? 

WRIGHT Our showrunner, Tom Barbor-Might, directed big portions of Limitless, and it felt like an exciting marriage of those two worlds. He was like, “How do we evolve and go further?” And that was catnip for Hiddleston and I. We were like, “How can we tell this type of story without feeling like your traditional documentary?” So all of those things were in conversation.

When a well-placed source first informed me that you and Hiddleston were starting a production banner called Ithaca after the success of Loki, I never expected your first output to be something on the nonfiction end of the spectrum. But you made documentaries in the Marines, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. 

WRIGHT Yes, and I hesitate to say that because I’m working alongside some really great documentary filmmakers at Nat Geo. But I do come from a combat camera and combat documentary background. True stories and true storytelling were always in my background. But we realized on Pompeii that it’s all the same set of tools. We didn’t want to differentiate between the doc and the drama in a traditional sense. We wanted the documentary to fuel the drama, and then have the drama fuel back into the documentary so that it all was one story. We just had a bigger tool set to play with now, and you can use tips and tricks from both disciplines to build a coherent third language between the two. So I felt really comfortable and excited to lean into a true story.

Is Pompeii: Out of Time representative of the wide array of stories your company wants to tell? 

WRIGHT When we were building our list of projects to work on, I’d be lying if I told you that we knew this would be the first one out of the gate. It just started to reveal itself as something really exciting and different. There’s a lot out there on TV and your phone. So we want to tell stories in a sincere, exciting way that’s also a little bit different.

Besides Tom’s passion for this story, what got me most excited about it was the ambition of the storytelling. With Loki, it was about how far we could push multiversal storytelling and still tie it to human and emotional stakes. And this story also became an emotional human story. It has this breadth of 2000 years being uncovered, but because it’s being told on a present timeline with Tom as he’s learning about it, it just felt like a really cool way to tell a story.

Will you be jumping back and forth between fiction and nonfiction?

WRIGHT There’s a lot of fictional TV and movies that we want to make. But it feels like we’ve unlocked a new language and technique in this nonfiction space. We spent a lot of time trying to refine the rules of this type of storytelling. It was like creating a multiverse. You establish all these rules so that you can tell a story within it. So I’d also be lying if I said we haven’t already sat around and talked about all the other types of stories we’d want to tell in this realm.

For those who don’t know the backstory, you were the first Marvel EP to pitch Tom on the idea of a Loki series, one that included foundational elements like the TVA, He Who Remains and Victor Timely. You then became a creative constant as writers and directors would tag in and out of the series. So was Tom the one who initiated the idea of keeping a good thing going?

WRIGHT Yes, we were in post-production on Loki season two, and while we were already trying to figure out what’s next, he floated it to me. He was like, “There’s a lot more stories to tell. Should we keep this going?” And I was like, “Yeah, let’s keep it going.” It’s rare when you find like-minded collaborators, not just in taste, but in how you approach the work. I’ve certainly found it rare to find an actor who is as passionate and hardworking as Tom. So there’s a world of stories that we can tell together, and we speak the same language of how to do that. He is a true producing partner.

[Writer’s Note: I asked Hiddleston a similar question about his partnership with Wright, and his separate answer warrants inclusion.]

HIDDLESTON I immediately loved working with Kevin. We’ve been working together since 2018. That’s when Marvel told me they wanted to make Loki, and as an executive at Marvel at the time, he volunteered to run it as a producer inside the studio. And together, we generated the show with [showrunners] Michael Waldron and Eric Martin, and directors Kate Herron, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. And through the pandemic and various industry strikes, we built the show together. 

During COVID-19, Kevin was the person I saw more than anyone else. Through making that show, we found we have a very similar taste and methodology. We think very carefully about everything. We stay up late on Friday night and get up early on Saturday morning to keep talking and turning things over. The script or the product itself is a live document. You never let the die cast. You never let the piece become set in stone. You keep the ball in the air. 

We also love the same movies, and whether they’re more commercial or independent, the ones we love the most are often those that have just been very carefully made. We always talk about how the best art or the best entertainment is when you feel like you are delivering popcorn that’s somehow nutritious. Florets of broccoli have somehow been smuggled into the buckets of popcorn, and that’s how we’ve always approached it. 

I’ve never had a partnership like this in terms of ease, equality and a shared discipline and rigor. So after we finished Loki, I said to Kevin, “I would love to keep working with you. I love our partnership. I love how we think. I love how we make things.” It’s been very fruitful. It’s almost like having a partner in doubles tennis. He’s got all the shots I haven’t got, and I can cover the corners he can’t cover. We even finish each other’s sentences. So I love working with him, and it was such a privilege and a pleasure to do Pompeii: Out of Time with him. 

Loki’s arc ended perfectly on Loki season two. It could’ve easily functioned as his swan song, however, he’ll soon return in Avengers: Doomsday. Do you have faith that Tom wouldn’t risk that ending unless Doomsday complemented or enhanced it to some degree?

WRIGHT I’m out of the loop now, so I know nothing about that world. But what I can tell you about Tom is that everything he does has to come from a real place of passion. The documentary and drama we’ve done together all comes from a real place inside him. He loves that character so much. He loves where we left him on Loki, and he loved where we left him before Loki. So, to get him to come back and do anything with that character, he would say the same thing that he said to me when we started Loki: “I’m really satisfied with the [existing] arc. How do we not just do the same thing again?” So he is going to find a way into the character to tell that [Doomsday] story in a way that will excite fans and move them.

[Writer’s Note: I’ve also included Hiddleston’s separate answer regarding his decision to continue Loki’s story following Loki season two.]

HIDDLESTON I felt so proud of Loki season two because I had finally been given the opportunity to close the chapter on aspects of the character that had been very alive within me for 15 years. It was the opportunity to heal the broken heart in him from when I first played him with Chris Hemsworth for director Kenneth Branagh in Thor (2011). 

His arc and status as an antihero in the Marvel universe started with grief and hardened into grievance. His shattered soul became something more menacing and malevolent. So I always wanted to find a way to redeem him, to bring him home and to give him that sense of belonging that he always craved. I think the Thor and Loki stories are about belonging and maturity. They’re ultimately about recognizing that the only way you can use the gift of your superpowers is to be truly who you are — and you can’t be who you are unless you have accepted every aspect of yourself.

At the end of Loki season two, Loki — thanks to Mobius, Sylvie and everybody else he meets on his adventures with the TVA — is able to confront himself, his failures, his fragility, his vulnerability and his capacity. He has real power, and he has real power to determine his destiny and the course of his life. And I believe that about life anyway. I believe that self-determination can only occur when you’ve taken a full account of yourself. It’s embracing the shadow as Carl Jung wrote about. So Loki embraces his shadow, and he’s finally found a way of being the God that he always could have been. 

Loki felt like a closure. And when Marvel called about Avengers: Doomsday, it was going to be starting from that end point. So there was no sense of unstitching or undoing all of that development. That development still stands as a place to begin, but I’m now edging into territory where I can’t say anymore about Doomsday.

Lastly, no one has made the Dunkirk of Pompeii movies yet. No offense to Kit Harington’s Pompeii (2014), but no one has made the definitive modern retelling on the big screen. If the docuseries does well, would a feature be within the realm of possibility? 

WRIGHT Yeah, Tom loves the ancient world, and I certainly love to play with scale and scope. Doing a big disaster movie is fun; anybody would love that. We’ve only scratched the surface of the Pompeii stories that you can tell. Pompeii: Out of Time covers just three people out of thousands that we know made it out of that disaster. There are so many human stories that you can tell there because it’s a living archeological site. They’re learning new things every day, so it feels like the story of Pompeii continues to be untapped.

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Pompeii: Out of Time premieres July 22 on Nat Geo, before its July 23 streaming release on Disney+/Hulu.