‘Crimson Peak’ Star Tom Hiddleston Talks His ‘Morally Ambiguous’ And ‘Sexually Charged’ Character

Crimson Peak‘s Tom Hiddleston, who is known for his role as Loki in the Marvel movies Avengers and Thor, sat down with Collider and talked about how thrilled he was to accept the lead part in the new Guillermo Del Toro film.

“It’s just brilliant, it just is a brilliant screenplay… Working with Guillermo who I’ve admired for so long, and the script itself was just brilliant and rich and sophisticated and terrifying; and the role was amazing, and different than anything else I’d done. It was a very, very quick ‘yes’ after that.”

Hiddleston went on to describe his character in the gothic romance.

“I think he’s the antihero, but certainly he’s the most morally ambiguous or complex figure in the story, because I think he’s genuinely caught in-between people and in-between conflicting emotions and is trying to find the best route through a very, very, difficult tangle of what people need from him and want from him and what he feels is his responsibility to those people. So it’s all about him, as I said, it’s about him discovering probably the truth about everything, about other people, and about himself, and about discovering his backbone and who he is as opposed to what other people define him to be. Because in many respects he’s been kept in the dark about the truth, so of course when you realize you’ve been lied to about certain things that changed your perspective about what you then do. Sorry that’s not very concisely put.”

Crimson Peak stars Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam, and Mia Wasikowska. Wasikowska plays author Edith Cushing, who marries Hiddleston’s Sir Thomas Sharpe and moves in with him and his sister Lucille, played by Chastain. Edith, after being warned by her old friend, Dr. Alan McMichael (Hunnam), quickly finds out that the spooky home and family she finds herself living with are anything but ordinary.

The film ventures into new territory for the acclaimed director. In preparing to the uniqueness of the movie, del Toro revealed that he gave each cast member a little something extra in order to prepare themselves for their role in the “kinky” gothic romance.

“I gave each of them a 10-page biography that says everything from what they like to eat to what sign they are and day they were born – all the story of the characters up to the point of the movie,” del Toro explained to Digital Trends.

Crimson Peak will be released to theaters October 16.

[Image Courtesy Of Universal Studios]