Thor: The Dark World's Alan Taylor on why Brits make great villains

In issue 212 of Total Film magazine - the Fantasy Issue - we bring you a plethora of incredible exclusives from the most fantastical other-worldly blockbusters heading your way.

Inside the issue - which is available for just £1.99 on your iPad , we get the lowdown from Thor: The Dark World and Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor on the filming of one of 2013's biggest blockbusters.

You can read the full interview with Taylor inside the issue, but for now, here's an online exclusive and extended cut extract from what he had to say about the British actors behind the movie's big villains, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), and why the Brits make such great bad guys/gals.

"I think it’s been a respected profession for hundreds of years in British culture – if you’re good at it you get knighted! The British are just absolutely brilliant technicians who can turn it on and turn it off. Working with Emilia Clarke in Game of Thrones , she’s a young woman and she can be laughing with the crew and having a joke but when you say action, she’s raging and sobbing and breeding dragons and you say cut and she finishes her joke. It’s that degree of control.

"And the Brits always have amazing control of the accent; they can do an American accent without batting an eye and Americans will slave away for months and not get it right so there’s just a technical control which seems to be embedded in the culture. But on the other side, I think Americans believe the British as villains because the accent’s just kind of villainous *laughs*. You sound so sophisticated, there must be something evil about you – we’re still fighting the Revolutionary War."

Thor: The Dark World opens in the UK on 30 October 2013.

For much more from Taylor, Hiddleston, Eccleston, Chris Hemsworth and many more, pick up the brand-new issue 212 of Total Film magazine, which is out 27 September 2013.

We focus on the most exciting fantasy movies - including The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and There and Back Again, Warcraft and many more - taking a close look at Marvel's second Phase II outing, Thor: The Dark World .

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