Tom Hiddleston's Chinese Vitamin Ad Is Deranged Art

Between podcasts, movies, and Netflix documentaries about them, there seems to be no hiding from serial killers these days (which is how they like it). Pushing the boundaries even further, Tom Hiddleston, the perennial warm-up act for every geek's sex fantasy about Benedict Cumberbatch, has chosen a new medium in which to explore and evoke the mind of a guilty killer: a women's vitamin ad.

Posted this week on the actor's Weibo page (China's Twitter, if Twitter had a whole different kind of fascist problem), Hiddleston unveiled his starring role in a Chinese ad for the vitamin supplement Centrum. In the ad, he plays a caring but jittery boyfriend who's taking a break from something important to cook his love a healthy breakfast and remind her to take her vitamins. Except his awkwardness is less of the Hugh Grant variety than something between Patrick Bateman and Hannibal Lecter.

The ad opens with a young woman waking up at the break of dawn to find a fully dressed and nervy Hiddleston standing in her kitchen. With haunted eyes, he then informs her that he "finished early," so he wanted to make her breakfast. What kind of activity was he up to in the middle of the night that meant he was racing against sunrise to finish it up? Don't ask too many questions, or you'll find out.

After serving a hearty breakfast of blueberries, raw vegetables, and the world's tiniest fried egg, a clearly distracted Hiddleston sits down across the table and can't seem to maintain eye contact, as if something is swirling around the deepest abyss of his mind.

Catching himself, he tries to perk up as he firmly reminds his significant other not to forget to take her pills -- or at least, whatever he mixed in the pills to keep her from remembering what she saw in their freezer.

Then, suddenly, Hiddleston has to go, informing us that he'll "probably be a bit busy for the next few weeks." He says he's sure she'll get to see him soon. But looking at his pained expression as he goes through the door, it'll likely be on the evening news, with that snazzy jacket draped over his face as seven police officers escort him through an angry mob.

Despite baffled reaction by Western fans, the ad has been a massive viral success with Chinese women. And sure, if you have to wake up one day to your boyfriend burying corpses in the woods and/or foisting Centrum upon you, you could do a lot worse than Tom Hiddleston.

For more weird tangents and his personal recipes for toilet wine, do follow Cedric on Twitter.

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