Tom Hiddleston has told fans that a 1998 visit to Pompeii at the age of 17 'felt like travelling back in time' and was 'like magic', describing it as the moment his schoolboy fascination with Latin became a life‑changing encounter with the ancient world.
Speaking during a live red carpet AMA on Reddit's r/AskHistorians on 16 July 2026, held with the crew of his new National Geographic series 'Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston', he traced that connection back to language lessons at around age ten and to the trip that he says reshaped how he understood history.
