Tom Hiddleston, known for his mysteriously charming Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, most certainly had another ladder to climb with his newest project, The Life of Chuck by Mike Flanagan, an adaptation of a Stephen King work. To take the titular introverted accountant who undergoes a radical change in life, Hiddleston had to enter the world of dance.
Tom Hiddleston Learnt Dance Steps For Stephen King Adaptation The Life of Chuck
Tom Hiddleston. Image Credit: Disney/Marvel
Tom Hiddleston found himself embracing a whole new set of skills in his latest film, The Life of Chuck. He portrayed the character Charles “Chuck” Krantz, an adaptation of Stephen King’s novella, whose acting required dance in several styles: jazz, swing, and bossa nova. This is an apocalyptic, yet hopeful tale that makes its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival this Friday, and it’s far more of a people-centric Stephen King story than perhaps one might’ve expected.
Directed by Mike Flanagan, The Life of Chuck centers around the life of an average man, Chuck Krantz, against the backdrop of a dying world. Unlike most of King’s other works, this doesn’t contain elements of the supernatural. Instead, it emulates movies like Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me, where the story plot centers around the emotional and human experiences of its characters, not some ghost or monstrous entity. The tale offers a life-affirming message as the world around Chuck gradually disintegrates, not through fiery destruction but through subtler, more poignant circumstances.
Hiddleston’s character, Chuck, is portrayed as an unassuming accountant whose life holds many unknowns. However, in one particularly powerful scene in the middle of the film, Chuck experiences a moment of spontaneous joy. While walking back from a banking conference, he encounters a street drummer. In an unexpected turn, Chuck drops his briefcase and joins in the rhythm, allowing himself to be swept up in the music.
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Preparation for this important scene saw Hiddleston train up to six weeks in all kinds of dance: from ebullient swing and polka to sensual samba and bossa nova.
He described his experience in Variety about preparation for the role, admitting he hadn’t had training in any of the various dances he had to go. “All of these technical dances had to be learned by me without any training,” he explained to Variety. Of course, the training period was laborious yet satisfying in that some dances came a lot easier than others, and he especially liked doing jazz and swing because it flowed and rhythmical; thus, it was quite nice to perform.
However, he faced challenges with the bossa nova, a dance style requiring intricate hip movements. “Bossa nova is a technical thing that took my hips a minute to get my head around,” Hiddleston noted. He also described the polka as an almost athletic feat, saying, “Polka is like a 100-meter sprint. It feels like a gallop.”
The street dance sequence, however, was not about perfect technique but rather the sheer joy of movement. Hiddleston emphasized that the scene was designed to be spontaneous, allowing Chuck to express his emotions through dance. “This dance number evolves very spontaneously. If the technique was not nailed by me, it was about expressing the joy,” he commented. This focus on the emotional aspect of the performance highlights the theme of the film—finding light and meaning in life, even as the world seems to collapse.
Mike Flanagan on Casting Tom Hiddleston for Stephen King’s The Life of Chuck
Tom Hiddleston. Image Credit: Sony Pictures Classics
Mike Flanagan tends to often hire actors with whom he has already collaborated on other projects, and has cast Loki-warden Tom Hiddleston as the lead in the movie. While The Life of Chuck boasts well over a dozen repeated collaborators for Flanagan, he opted to use Hiddleston for the title character. This has become very popular now, as Flanagan previously mentioned wanting to use an unknown actor for the main character. This was his explanation for such an act: to come up with something different and a little unexpected as the plot unfolded.
In a recent interview that he had with Vanity Fair, Flanagan had mentioned how he wanted to toy with the idea of casting someone who would provoke the audience to think, “Who the hell is this person?”
That unknown-actor idea was an appealing one, but working with such an actor as Hiddleston finally proved too great to resist. Flanagan also praised the astonishing versatility of the actor. For Flanagan, this was a special talent that made him an ideal choice for the role.
A particularly unexpected inspiration for casting Hiddleston came from a TikTok video where the actor was seen dancing. Flanagan mentioned that the scene in the video mirrored a pivotal dance moment in The Life of Chuck.
“The dance moves were impressive, but it was the unfiltered joy on his face that struck me the most,” the director shared. “He was a good dancer, but that wasn’t what struck me. I wasn’t amazed by the technique so much as the degree of happiness that was radiating off of him,” Flanagan revealed, adding that the emotion he saw in Hiddleston mirrored the joy that had been felt when reading that portion of King’s book.
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Ultimately, it was the combination of Hiddleston’s talent, his genuine enthusiasm, and an effortless embodiment of complex characters that sealed the deal with Flanagan. But as the release of The Life of Chuck finally approaches for fans of both Stephen King and Mike Flanagan, it’s certain that a performance by Hiddleston will add another layer to an already interesting storyline.
The Life of Chuck blends an apocalyptic theme with heartwarming humane experiences. Hiddleston’s Chuck offers an emotional delve into the life of a regular man, framed against extraordinary circumstances. This film will no doubt be a touching adaptation that proves once more how Stephen King’s stories are as much about the resilience of the human spirit as they can be about the horrors of the supernatural.
The Life of Chuck doesn’t have a distributor yet, it has no theatrical release date as of now.
