How Tom Hiddleston Helped Brie Larson with Blockbuster Shock in Kong: Skull Island

How Tom Hiddleston Helped Brie Larson in Kong: Skull Island

Brie Larson built her acting resume on TV shows like "Community" before starring in "Room," a low-budget drama about a mother and son locked away in a room. The powerful film earned her an Academy Award and suddenly made her one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood, signed for the mega-budget "Avengers: Infinity Wars," "Captain Marvel" and this week's release "Kong: Skull Island," as a peace activist photographer coming face to fury face with filmdom's most famous ape.

"It's really exciting. I mean, it's a part of history," Larson tells Made in Hollywood reporter Patrick Stinson. "I don't think I knew really what to expect. I had never done a film of this size before. So every day was sort of magical and surreal and exciting."

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Brie Larson Says She's Still Adjusting to Making Big Budget Films Like Kong: Skull Island

Helping Larson make the leap from TV shows and indie films to big budget fare was "Skull Island" star Tom Hiddleston, who has made a career balancing modest movies like the Hank Williams biopic "I Saw the Light" with the "Thor" tentpoles.

"Most of my stuff is with him, and I had never done a big movie like this before, and he had done quite a few of them -- and well at that," she says. "So it was just really great that he was there to be so helpful and teach me how to do this, because it's a completely different art form and not one I'm used to."

How Brie Larson Reacted to a Computer-Generated King Kong in Kong: Skull Island

One of the biggest challenges in acting in a special effects extravaganza was performing with a character who didn't exist on set -- King Kong -- who'd be generated later in a computer.

"I never really met him," laughs Larson. "I didn't meet him at all. I just worked with a tape mark. He never showed up. ... I guess it wasn't so bad. I just used my imagination, which is a huge part of what I do anyway, and this was an extension of that."

"Skull Island" also gave Larson the opportunity to recreate an iconic cinematic moment: being held in the hand of the giant beast, a scene etched into movie history by Fay Wray in the 1933 original and later by Jessica Lange in the 1976 version.

"It was a really great day for me, actually, because generally my days consisted of running and jumping and climbing," Larson says. "And that day I just got to sleep on a little pad. I loved it."