Tom Hiddleston's Avengers hug

Tom Hiddleston says the cast of 'The Avengers' movie are all very close, even though he was initially intimidated by some of his big-name co-stars.

Tom Hiddleston felt like he was having a "group hug" on the set of 'The Avengers'.

The British actor portrays his 'Thor' character Loki in the forthcoming Marvel comic book movie, and while the film's big cast - including Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson and Chris Hemsworth - was slightly intimidating at first, he admits the group got along famously quickly.

He said: "For the first 10 minutes after you meet them, they have the wattage and charisma of movie stars. Then you have a coffee with them and you realise we're all the same, we're all just people.

"All of the actors in 'The Avengers' are so nice. Marvel has these code names for projects and the code name for 'The Avengers' was Group Hug. It felt very much like a group hug on set."

Tom - who is the villain of the film - admits his favourite part of the movie was getting to do his own stunts.

He told Britain's Elle magazine: "My favourite moment on set was filming at a NASA location the size of a cathedral. I flew around like a trapeze artist in a rocket-testing facility in the company of Samuel L. Jackson and Jeremy Renner. That was a pretty good day at work."