Tom Hiddleston tells Pompeii's story from the survivors' perspective

“Pompeia is an active archaeological site,” Lusa told the actor in an interview about the new series “Pompeia: Before the Disaster”, which premiered on July 23 at Disney+ Portugal. “I thought it had been instantaneous, that the eruption and burial had happened at the same time,” he revealed. “What I didn’t know was that it lasted a day from the first eruption until the city was buried.”. 

This interval gave people about 24 hours to make different decisions: stay, start rescue missions, get animals out of town, get away by boat. 

“ It was a complete surprise and suddenly seemed to be a gateway to a very dynamic way of telling the story of ordinary human beings involved in an extraordinary moment, having to make decisions that seemed very relevant and contemporary,” Hiddleston said. 

For this three-episode National Geographic miniseries, the actor met Kevin R. Wright, executive producer of “Loki”, and traveled to Pompeii to investigate disaster timeline and find survivors. 

The production has a mixed format, which combines conversations between Hiddleston and various experts in Classical Antiquity and a dramatization of events following three Romans caught by Vesuvius: a young apprentice, a business woman and a member of the Praetorian Guard. 

“Thanks to current academic records, it is possible to track people’s choices through the amount of ‘graffitis’ and inscriptions, evidence found on Pompeii walls,” the actor explained. “Because of these inscriptions, which is something I didn’t know before, we found out there were survivors.”. 

The process followed is to look for names on Pompeii walls and look for them outside the city after the eruption. “It is almost 100% guaranteed that this individual escaped and this is a story that I find incredibly moving,” he continued. “In an emergency, ordinary human beings managed to get together, help each other and save themselves.”. 

Tom Hiddleston, actor of “War Horse” and “The Man Who Changed the World”, studied Classical Antiquity at the University, knows Latin and has a fascination of decades over this period of history. This is how the opportunity arose to lead this project, which began with a contact by Alan Eyres of Plimsoll Studios, who knew the actor's interest in the theme and had seen the series "Loki", whose first episode begins precisely in Pompeii. 

“Loki is a series about belonging, identity, purpose and time”, described the actor, stressing that the character, who had already assumed in “Thor” and “The Avengers”, is pulled out of time and the questions explored go through self-determination and whether or not we are in control of our destiny. 

“He [Eyres] knocked at the door of my passion about antiquity, which I carry with me forever”, he recalled. Hiddleston considered that he had reached a point in his career where he could tell this story in a different way. 

“ He had enough experience telling stories to be quite dynamic and creative with cinematic grammar, immersing the audience in an engaging and exciting way,” he said. “And retelling Pompeii’s story in an original way, as I expected, and guided by empathy and compassion, as well as by enormous respect for academic rigor and archaeological and historical record.”. 

The immersive tone serves, said the actor, to try to make the audience feel the same as he did when he first went to Pompeii in 1998, when he was 17 and studied Latin. “I was about to enter the last year and finish my exams to apply for university and my visit to Pompeii was immediately, instantly and extraordinarily like entering the past.”. 

“Pompeia: Before the Disaster” premieres on July 23 at Disney+ Portugal and on July 27 at National Geographic Portugal. The original soundtrack is composed by Aisling Brouwer.