Despite what we may want to believe, Tom Hiddleston's sister isn't Hela; it's Emma.
It's weird to think that some of our favorite actors have siblings, most of whom aren't even the tiniest bit famous. It's even stranger realizing one of your favorite celebrities has a sibling in the same business but not as successful.
Tom Hiddleston is currently the driving force in the MCU. He's had a fanbase of Hiddlestoners ever since he debuted as Loki in the franchise, and they've put him on this pedestal to gawk and marvel at as his celebrity increases. But we forget that he had a long journey to where he is today, and it would never have happened without his sisters, especially his sister Emma (and of course Kenneth Branaugh, who discovered him).
So who is Emma Hiddleston, is she overshadowed by her brother, like many other celebrity siblings, and how did she help him get to where he is today?
Both Of Hiddelston's Sisters Helped Him Understand Women
If you're new to the Hiddlestoner club, you should know that the actor has fierce respect for women, and that's due in part to being brought up by strong women. He knew how to treat women from a very early age, thanks to his "strong-minded, independent" mother and sisters. They taught him what it means to support a woman as well. Eventually, when he got into the business, this was an attractive trait to many.
The actor told Hello! magazine that "noticing a woman’s new haircut was a must, as was supporting what she was doing."
"When I was about 16, I had friends who had grown up exclusively around men, and they didn’t understand women at all. I like to think that through growing up with my sisters, I have a sense of who women are, of their needs, their diversity, and all those lovely things," he said.
Besides learning from the women in his family, Hiddleston had a pretty normal childhood with his siblings.
"You pretended to be whoever you pretended to be together," he told Just Jared in his early career. "My sisters and I all watched - depending on who won the competition for the remote control or for the VHS - E.T. together and Indiana Jones and Star Wars and Dirty Dancing and Uncle Buck and basically all those movies of the ’80s that any child of the ’80s grew up on!"
Hiddleston's older sister Sarah used to write plays with their cousins, and he and everybody used to act in them for their parents. "It always felt like such a huge deal, but it was literally five people and a dog in the audience in the back garden."
But just because Hiddleston's name is everywhere right now doesn't mean he's any more successful than his sisters.
Emma Is An Actress Like Hiddleston
Hiddleston's sister Sarah is a successful journalist. She currently lives in India, where her husband is from, and Hiddleston has talked about visiting her in the past. In 2012, he told the Hindustan Times, "I have family in India. My sister stays in Chennai, and I’ve been to India about four times so far. The last time I came was in October last year (2011)… I came very quietly just to see my sister. I love it there."
Apparently, Sarah and her husband have shown their thespian brother some Bollywood films too. "My Indian family is always introducing me to new films," he said. "My sister made me see Devdas that had Aishwarya Rai. The last film I saw was Shah Rukh Khan’s My Name Is Khan on an airplane. I loved it." He had also expressed his wish to star in a Bollywood movie. "I’d want nothing more but to star in a Bollywood movie," he said.
His younger sister, Emma, lives in England with the rest of the family and is an actress. Emma is five years younger than Hiddleston, but she's his lookalike; it's actually scary. She attended the Dragon School prep school and the University of Cambridge, where she studied Anthropology and dabbled in acting, starring in various productions.
When asked if they ever tag-teamed or talked about acting, Hiddleston said, "Well, we sort of always have, in a way," but the brother-sister duo actually co-starred in the 2007 film Unrelated (probably no one in the audience knew they were). Emma played Badge, the sister of Hiddleston's Oakley, and in fact, Emma is listed higher than her brother on the film's cast list on IMDb.
She's also starred in a couple of episodes of Holby City, Father Brown, Endeavour, and Wolf Hall. Her last credit was voicing a character for the video game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in 2015. She's also married to Jack Blakiston-Houston, leaving Hiddleston the only sibling not married (strangely enough).
Even if Emma knows what it's like to be in the business, it must still be weird for her and Sarah to see their brother labeled a sex symbol. They keep him in check, though. "I feel like it's their job... it has been as my sisters, to remind me of my inherent ugliness and pointlessness in the universe," Hiddleston said.
It sounds like Hiddleston has an adorable relationship with Emma and Sarah, and it makes us love him even more if that's even possible. But it would still be cool to see him and Emma co-star together once more. She doesn't look like she'd set destruction on Asgard, so we already like her.