Ever since being cast as Loki in the first Marvel’s Thor movie back in 2011, Tom Hiddleston has been one of the busiest actors in Hollywood. He’s dominated the big screen in both Marvel and non-Marvel movies and the same can be said for the small screen as well. After starring in the Loki series on Disney Plus, he returned for the second season of the British series The Night Manager, the first season of which had aired back in 2016. Now, Hiddleston’s next streaming venture has been confirmed, and it will be on Apple TV.
Hiddleston will co-star in the Apple TV film Tenzing, a biographical film about Tenzing Norgay, the Nepalese Sherpa who guided New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary when they became the first men to reach the top of Mount Everest. Hiddleston will play Hillary, while Chinese actor Genden Phuntsok will star as Norgay. Willem Dafoe also stars as John Hunt, the British army officer who led the expedition to Everest.
“The adventure of a lifetime”
The movie was directed by Australian filmmaker Jennifer Peedom. This will be Peedom’s first narrative film, though she has extensive experience as a documentary filmmaker, particularly on the subject of mountain climbing. She has directed the documentaries Miracle on Everest (2008), Sherpa (2015), Mountain (2017), and Mountain Quest (2021). For Tenzing, Peedom filmed around Mount Everest, along with the Nepalese city of Kathmandu.
“The extraordinary thing that Jen has done is she’s put us all in the environment,” Hiddleston said in a 2025 interview with Josh Horowitz. “We’ve actually just spent a month in Nepal and I’ve spent some time in the Khumbu Valley and in the foothills of Everest and in the Himalayas.”
Hiddleston also called the experience “the adventure of a lifetime,” as Everest has been a lifelong obsession for the actor.
It will be especially interesting to see how the film depicts the moment when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reach the summit itself. Following the famous expedition, there was a great deal of speculation as to who reached the top first. While Sir Edmund Hillary got most of the attention, particularly from Western news outlets, both men refused to say who stepped on the highest point first in the 1953 expedition. However, Norgay would eventually reveal that it was Hillary who took that first step onto the top of Everest.
When will Tenzing come to streaming?
Before heading to Apple TV, Tenzing will have a brief theatrical release first. The movie will debut on September 15 at the Toronto International Film Festival. It will then hit select theaters on October 9. Finally, Tenzing will arrive on Apple TV a week later, on October 16.
Tenzing will be available to stream on Apple TV on October 16.
