Tom Hiddleston Shows You How to Be a Villain, Step by Step, in Jaguar’s Latest Ad

Tom Hiddleston was the best thing about Jaguar's villainous Super Bowl ad, and now, two months later, he gets to shine in his own two-and-a-half-minute online spot for the automaker.

To promote the F-Type Coupe, Hiddleston explains how to act like a villain in four steps (sound, dress, drive and plan), and why British actors are so good at it. He left out the part about upper-class British accents being associated with centuries of brutal imperialism (not to mention the Revolution to American audiences), but that's a lot to process for a car commercial. Whoever wrote this ad has also mastered the villainous expositional monologue that goes on too long.

Check out four more videos below that break down Hiddleston's four steps in ways that relate more directly to the car.




Villains Revel in Their Britishness in Jaguar’s Super Bowl Ad

As Super Bowl ads continue to roll out days before the event, Jaguar has joined the trend and released its first game day spot, "Rendezvous."

The 60-second ad from Spark 44 features a trio of "British villains," played by Ben Kingsley, Tom Hiddleston and Mark Strong. Unfortunately, we don't see them pulling off a billion-dollar caper or foiling some James Bond-ian superspy. But we do get to hear them wax eloquently about why Brits make better bad guys, and that's something. 

Personally, I had wondered how they'd handle the pronunciation of the British brand, which is "Jag-waar" in America and "Jag-you-are" in the U.K. The burden of the word lands on Strong (Lord Blackwood in 2009's Sherlock Holmes), who basically says it so fast, you'll be lucky to catch it at all.

While the spot's star power is sure to merit some game day buzz, the execution does seem to suffer a bit from a "too many cooks in the kitchen" vibe. The ad is called both "British Villains" and "Rendezvous"; the hashtag is #GoodToBeBad; the URL is BritishVillains.com; and the tagline is, "How alive are you?" After all that, is there still room in your brain for the name of the car? (Hint: It's the F-Type coupe.)