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Spartan Girl
Spartan Girl

@GHScorpiosRule we’re getting a naked Loki!!!!!!

Zuleikha
Zuleikha

Loki enchanting Thor into a frog is canon. It's mentioned in Thor Ragnarok.  Also, the quote of mine that you responded to was talking about the deleted scene in which Frog Thor attacks Loki as Loki a

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Dandesun

Dandesun

5 hours ago, AimingforYoko said:

No, Loki loved Fridays, but he always sought the approval of Wednesdays.

Oh my Gods. 

That is amazing.

WELL PLAYED!

 

Also, did I know Richard E Grant was a part of this?! Because I have loved him since I first saw him in LA Story and he joined the Star Wars universe already but now will be part of the MCU? This makes me so happy.

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pezgirl7

pezgirl7

1 hour ago, swanpride said:

??? Why is there a cartoon clock on the poster? 

I'm guessing we'll find out! It's interesting that the clock doesn't have any hands. Maybe anyone that comes to the Time Variance Authority has to watch a 1950's style educational video about the negative effects of time travel, and the little clock is in the video.

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AnimeMania

AnimeMania

1 hour ago, pezgirl7 said:

I'm guessing we'll find out! It's interesting that the clock doesn't have any hands. Maybe anyone that comes to the Time Variance Authority has to watch a 1950's style educational video about the negative effects of time travel, and the little clock is in the video.

When I look at the clock I see two hands and two feet.

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tv echo

tv echo

(edited)

An exclusive look at 26 of summer 2021's must-watch TV shows
By EW Staff    May 14, 2021
https://ew.com/tv/summer-2021-tv-preview/ 

Quote

Loki (June 9, Disney+)

Where did Avengers-era Loki (Tom Hiddleston) escape to after stealing the Tesseract during Avengers: Endgame’s time heist? That’s what Disney+’s latest Marvel series will finally reveal. Spanning six episodes, Loki is about the Time Variance Authority – a bureaucratic organization tasked with safeguarding the proper flow of time — arresting the titular agent of chaos because they need his help fixing all of the timeline problems he created while on the run with the Tesseract. “My pitch for the show was kind of a big, crazy, fun time adventure,” says head writer Michael Waldron. “The TVA is just an entirely new world [with] a new cast of characters, and that’s what felt most exciting about the show: building a new corner of the MCU.” —Chancellor Agard

E1WTiK9XEAEkzAG?format=jpg 

Edited by tv echo
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Tom Hiddleston was a presenter at last night's 2021 MTV Movie & TV Awards. He also presented the following "Exclusive World Premiere Look" video clip from Loki...

Tom Hiddleston presenting the new official clip, “Introducing Agent Mobius” (2021.05.16)
Zsuzsanna Uhlik    May 17, 2021

“Introducing Agent Mobius” Clip | Marvel Studios’ Loki | Disney+
Marvel Entertainment   May 16, 2021

 

Edited by tv echo
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Stars of Marvel’s ‘Loki,’ ‘WandaVision’ and ‘Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ Join Variety’s Virtual TV Fest
By William Earl    May 18, 2021
https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/wandavision-loki-falcon-and-the-winter-soldier-marvel-variety-virtual-tv-fest-1234975320/ 

Quote

Variety is pleased to announce the final programming for its second annual Virtual TV Festival, presented by Amazon Advertising, airing on June 8, 9 and 10. An exclusive panel with the stars of Marvel’s “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” “Loki” and “WandaVision” will premiere on Wednesday, June 9. This will be the first time that the stars of all three shows will appear together in one panel. Paul Bettany, Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan will come together to talk about the three shows and how they co-exist in the Marvel Universe.

VIRTUAL_TV_FEST_2021_SOCIAL_MARVEL_V2.jp


Variety Virtual TV Fest Schedule:
https://virtualtvfest2021v4.splashthat.com/ 

Quote

DAY 2 MORNING PROGRAM

9:30 AM PT
MARVEL SUPERPANEL

Stars from Marvel's popular and eagerly awaited TV series WandaVision, Loki and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier talk about their experiences on the set and discuss their characters' impact on the storied Marvel Cinematic Universe.

PAUL BETTANY, WANDAVISION (VISION, THE VISION)

TOM HIDDLESTON, LOKI (LOKI)

ANTHONY MACKIE, THE FALCON AND WINTER SOLDIER ( SAM THOMAS WILSON / FALCON)

ELIZABETH OLSEN, WANDAVISION (WANDA MAXIMOFF/SCARLET WITCH)

SEBASTIAN STAN, THE FALCON AND WINTER SOLDIER (BUCKY BARNES / WINTER SOLDIER)

Moderated by Adam Vary

 

Edited by tv echo
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pezgirl7

pezgirl7

(edited)

Paul and Tom together are my tall, sexy, skinny white dude dream duo. I'm still hoping they do a film where they have a scene together. Elizabeth is a very lucky woman since she's played the wife of both!

Two more videos:

Loki in 30 Seconds | Marvel Studios’ Loki | Disney+

Tom Hiddleston Looks Back at 10 Years of Loki | Entertainment Weekly

 

EW article with photos and video: Loki takes over: Tom Hiddleston on his new TV series and a decade in the MCU

 

Edited by pezgirl7
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(edited)

More from EW...

Loki | EW Promo
Marvel Studios Movies    May 20, 2021


Related articles:
Tom Hiddleston breaks down a decade of Loki's most memorable scenes
By Chancellor AgardMay 20, 2021 
https://ew.com/movies/tom-hiddleston-loki-best-scenes/

Tom Hiddleston suits up for EW's Loki digital cover shoot
By Chancellor AgardMay 20, 2021 
https://ew.com/tv/tom-hiddleston-digital-cover-shoot-portraits/ 

Edited by tv echo
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tv echo

tv echo

Clock | Marvel Studios’ Loki | Disney+
Marvel Entertainment   May 23, 2021

Loki team tease show's inspirations: Mad Men, Blade Runner...and Teletubbies?
By Chancellor Agard   May 21, 2021 
https://ew.com/tv/loki-pop-culture-inspirations/ 

Quote

"I would describe it as big sci-fi with heart," director Kate Herron tells EW, pointing Jurassic Park as the platonic idea of that tone. "They're in these amazing sci-fi worlds, but Jurassic Park, for me at least, is about a guy working, 'Can I be a dad? How do I feel about kids?' I think that is very relatable. So I think for us with Loki, I think the thing I brought to it is that i'm very character-focused and I'm always trying to give the audience an understanding of, how does these characters feel in these big huge universes?"
*  *  *
For a show about Loki, that meant grounding the show's high-concept in the Asgardian's struggles with identity. To that end, head writer Michael Waldron looked to AMC's Mad Men as an example of how to tell rich character study.

"We're going to get to invest six episodes worth of time and get to tell maybe a more complex, layered character-driven story than you'd get to do in a big blockbuster where you've got so many characters to service in just a two-hour runtime," says Waldron. "That Mad Men influence as much philosophical and it was aesthetic."

With the TVA, Loki dives into a new corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When Herron went in to pitch for the show, she focused on that aspect and drew on some personal experience when she presented to the Powers That Be at Marvel.

"I actually spent a lot of my life working in admin offices as a temp, so I had a lot of personal experience in bureaucratic organizations to bring," she says with a laugh. "I was like, 'These are the detail we need to capture,' being someone who has worked in offices. And also, I love sci-fi, and I wanted to make the show just a big love letter to sci-fi and all the stuff that's inspired me to be a filmmaker."

Recalling Herron's pitch, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige adds: "She spent a lot of time talking about noir in her initial pitch with us and looking at Mobius, [Owen Wilson's TVA analyst], as a bit of a hard-boiled detective in a nonplussed way. Bringing that vibe to the look of the show, to the bureaucratic procedure of the show is very unique." To capture that feeling, the creative looked to Ridley Scott's 1982 classic Blade Runner, because "it was just a noir-ish, sci-fi, crime thriller," says Waldron.

Of course, the writers room also looked to the Marvel canon to inspire their approach to the TVA. "We drew inspiration from a wide breadth of ideas as the TVA shows up all throughout [Marvel]. There's Fantastic Four runs, where they're running around, and they're in She-Hulk in a cool way," says Waldron. "All of those stories were inspiration in just saying like, 'Alright, what is this crazy organization? And how can we now make them real in a way that you could actually shoot a TV show about them?'"

Finally, Herron also lists Terry Gilliam's Brazil and, curiously, The Teletubbies as some of her visual references, too. How does that last one play into the show? Says Herron, "You're gonna have to wait until [the show premieres]."

 

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Loki: Tom Hiddleston Reveals the MCU's Future Is Predetermined By the TVA
By Julia Delbel    Posted: May 25, 2021
https://thedirect.com/article/loki-tom-hiddleston-mcu-future-tva-tesseract 

Quote

In the Summer 2021 issue of Disney’s D23 Magazine obtained by The Direct, Loki actor Tom Hiddleston opened up about the series' concept of time criminals and the organization in charge of them: the Time Variance Authority, or TVA, for short.

Specifically, Hiddleston noted that the time institution "have predetermined what happens in the past, the present, and the future" of the Marvel Cinematic Universe:

"If you have done something to alter history or alter the course of the future, according to the TVA, you get pulled into their headquarters and processed as a time criminal. You could literally have done anything. The TVA is an organization that orders and polices the passage of time. They have predetermined what happens in the past, the present, and the future - in a straight line. And if you do anything that deviates from that, or creates an alternate branch of reality, you get hauled into the TVA and charged with crimes against the timeline, and you're a time prisoner. It will come as a surprise to no one that Loki is one of those time criminals. He has pushed the boat out. He's broken too many of his restrictions."

Loki director Kate Herron spoke on Loki's reaction to what he has caused, saying "With Loki taking the Tesseract, fans will see exactly what that action means and what a bigger ripple he's made in time doing that. It causes him to be more reflective about his actions and why he's done what he's done."
*  *  *
Tom Hiddleston's comments about Loki "[breaking] too many of his restrictions" is also interesting, and may answer the question as to why the Avengers didn't get in trouble with the TVA for their time travel escapades in Endgame, but Loki is here. It's possible there is some wiggle room for people's actions to deviate slightly from the TVA's plan but not affect the future (or at least not in any meaningful way) so they are spared from being time prisoners and going on trial at the TVA.

 

Edited by tv echo
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johntfs

johntfs

On 5/20/2021 at 2:37 PM, pezgirl7 said:

Paul and Tom together are my tall, sexy, skinny white dude dream duo. I'm still hoping they do a film where they have a scene together. Elizabeth is a very lucky woman since she's played the wife of both!

Two more videos:

Loki in 30 Seconds | Marvel Studios’ Loki | Disney+

Tom Hiddleston Looks Back at 10 Years of Loki | Entertainment Weekly

 

EW article with photos and video: Loki takes over: Tom Hiddleston on his new TV series and a decade in the MCU

 

I have to admit that Loki and Wanda would make for an interesting "power couple" in the MCU.

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tv echo

tv echo

(edited)

Loki is on the cover of next week's new TV Guide Magazine (June 7-20, 2021), which includes an accompanying feature article inside...

-- In the feature article, Loki is described as a "time-traveling procedural drama."

-- Tom Hiddleston: "Loki's a mercurial shapeshifter who seems to present one thing on the external when there's perhaps another thing going on in the internal... He's always worn many masks."

-- The Time Variance Authority was formed to "ensure that time unfolds according to its predetermined outcomes."

-- Kevin Feige: "You can take his scepter away, you can take off the cape and the fine Asgardian leather and literally put him in a button-down shirt and pants, and he's still Loki - he's more Loki than you've ever seen... And that's not just because Tom Hiddleston looks good in any clothes at all, but he does."

-- According to TV Guide, the TVA needs Loki's help to "track down a killer who's wreaking havoc on the timeline. Reluctant yet powerless, the inmate has no choice but to say yes."

-- TVA agent Mobius M. Mobius is assigned to keep Loki on "a very short leash." According to Owen Wilson, Mobius holds "the highest academic honors in the studies of Loki... It's a little bit of a chess match to gain Loki's trust, but in that shared endeavor, there's an interesting dynamic." Wilson compared their partnership to "Nick Nolte getting Eddie Murphy out of jail in 48 Hrs."

-- Feige predicts Loki and Mobius "will be one of the most popular pairings we've ever had at Marvel."

-- Per TV Guide, viewers "can also anticipate some ambiguity" (like in WandaVision and TFATS): watercooler moments plus question marks ("we still don't know who Sophia D. Martino is playing").

-- Hiddleston: "What we try to ask is, behind the slippery trickster, who is he truly? ... Does he even know?"
E3BDeeIVkAAenPg?format=jpg


26 Summer Shows, No Mask Required
By Mike Hale    June 3, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/03/arts/television/summer-tv-shows-premiere.html

Quote

‘Loki’
...
Marvel’s determined exploitation of its secondary characters on Disney+ is, if nothing else, providing gainful employment for talented actors: Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany in “WandaVision,” Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and now Tom Hiddleston, taking further time away from Shakespeare to reprise his role as the Asgardian trickster Loki. (Disney+, June 9)

 
Edited by tv echo
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tv echo

tv echo

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Loki's Gender Fluidity in Disney+ Series Confirmed by Latest Teaser
By Matt Webb Mitovich / June 6 2021
https://tvline.com/2021/06/06/loki-gender-fluid-disney-plus-marvel-series/ 

Quote

The new teaser, released on Sunday — just as the social media embargo lifted on the press’ initial reactions to the first two episodes — closes with a shot of the TVA’s (Time Variance Authority) file on Loki, which designates his sex as “FLUID.”


Path | Marvel Studios' Loki | Disney+
Marvel Entertainment    Jun 6, 2021


Tom Hiddleston On Why ‘Loki’ Is Always A Riddle To Solve But Fascinating To Watch
blackfilmandtv    Jun 7, 2021


Loki's Kate Herron and Michael Waldron on getting "weird" with Marvel
BY DAVID OPIE    June 4, 2021
https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a36593164/loki-marvel-cameo-kate-herron-michael-waldron/ 

Quote

[Loki director Kate] Herron tells us that she's always loved the God of Mischief, so when she heard that Loki would be starring in his own solo outing, she immediately had to get involved. "I remember saying to my agent, 'Just keep calling them. Just keep calling them. Eventually, they will cave, and they will meet me.'"

Once she was in the room with Disney, Kate showed them a 60-page pitch document that included "everything" in it. "I figured, go big or go home, because I knew I'd be up against some really experienced directors, and I thought, 'Well, I'm not going to lie to them' and be like, 'I'm the most experienced person you're meeting.' But I thought I'd just be the most passionate."
*  *  *
Clearly, it worked, and not long after, Herron started to collaborate with Loki head writer Michael Waldron, another Marvel fan who took an unusual path to reach this point. Before joining the House of Mouse, Michael worked in the Rick and Morty writers' room, which he describes as a sort of "sci-fi college" where he was "inundated with science fiction knowledge all day, every day".
*  *  *
Not only does Herron want to "pay respect and homage to a character that people love," she also wants to ensure "there's a reason why we're going back in," by "taking Loki to fresh ground".

Of course, covering "fresh ground" can be risky, especially with a "six-hour movie" like this. And that's why Waldron was "terrified" longtime Marvel fans might find their show too complex or inaccessible. "That was my biggest fear. It keeps me up at night," says Michael. But the writers' room rose to that challenge by starting from the ground up.

"We had to establish a logical foundational sci-fi reality for the show. It's the TVA. They police time. That meant that we had to create rules, and build out what do they do? Why do they do it? For the writers' room, they all had drawings and stuff like this on the whiteboards."
*  *  *
"And that necessitates really complex explanations and ideas," Michael continues. "Then you have to figure out: 'OK, how can we boil this down into a very simple way so that the audience is going to understand what Loki is going through, but they're not going to feel like they're in science class? They're not going to tune out because they're bored?'"
*  *  *
And it also helps that we've never seen Loki quite like this before. As Kate points out, "Loki's in a very different place to where we've seen him in the last 10 years. We're taking him on a very unique, new journey. It's him working out who he is, and trying to basically undo this mess he's made with time, with the TVA."
*  *  *
Although there will be nods to the comics, Herron says that Loki's journey here is something we've "not seen or read before". And that's also true of where we're at in the MCU right now. Post-Endgame, this is a very different world to the one Stan Lee envisioned all those many years ago.
*  *  *
No comic book characters were off-limits to Waldron and his team either. "If they were within the rights, and legal could clear it, there was no reason we couldn't try and chase them down." And when we pressed him on possible cameos, Michael simply told us to "expect the unexpected".


How the Man Behind Loki Is Shaping Marvel’s Phase 4 and Beyond
BY JOANNA ROBINSON     JUNE 3, 2021
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/06/loki-michael-waldron-doctor-strange-star-wars-rick-and-morty 

Quote

When Waldron met with Marvel for Loki, the executive team had already decided to set the show in the world of the TVA (or Time Variance Authority), a sci-fi bureaucratic agency that cleans up any anomalies in Marvel’s increasingly complex and branching timelines and realities.
*  *  *
“That was the sandbox that we had to play in,” Waldron says. “I came up with the emotional engine of the whole thing. The fans of Loki watched him experience a character arc through Infinity War, and in a lot of ways, maybe even arc out. How do we break new ground with this character? What better movies and TV shows did I intend to rip off in each episode?”

Marvel itself solved the “arc out” problem by plucking Loki from earlier in his timeline at the end of 2012’s Avengers. Hiddleston’s character enters the show a time criminal captured by the TVA, and he might, in the end, prove its most valuable asset. Loki, the series, presents a less evolved, more mischievous god of mischief, and Waldron considers Hiddleston’s versatility the show’s ultimate weapon. The ceiling for Loki felt “so high” that Waldron was free to draw on a broad range of films and TV shows to construct Loki’s latest journey through the MCU.
*  *  *
But just because he’s pulling from cinema doesn’t mean Waldron thinks of Loki as a six-hour movie. “I’d say it’s something totally new! It’s MCU. It was important that every episode stood alone. The Leftovers or Watchmen, which I admired so much—every one of those episodes felt like a distinct short story. That’s the sign of a great episode of TV. ‘Oh, it’s that episode of Loki.’” (If you’re wondering how delightfully weird Loki might get, Waldron mentions the lion sex cult boat episode of The Leftovers, “It’s A Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World,” as a personal favorite.)
*  *  *
One love story to keep an eye out for is brewing between Hiddleston’s god of mischief and Owen Wilson’s TVA bureaucrat Mr. Mobius. The two spark and spar, building on the duo’s chemistry from Midnight in Paris. “Mobius and Loki, that’s one of the love stories you might see in Loki for sure,” he says. “Although if you print that, knowing our fans, they’re going to take it the wrong way.” When I clarified that their love story might be more akin to the platonic one between Tom Hanks’s FBI agent Carl Hanratty and Leonardo DiCaprio’s con man Frank Abagnale Jr. in Catch Me If You Can, Waldron says, “Exactly. Right.”
*  *  *
Marvel already made its case for how time travel works in Avengers: Endgame, but that, Waldron points out, “is the way the Avengers understand it.” With a TV show it’s a little different. “I was always very acutely aware of the fact that there’s a week between each of our episodes and these fans are going to do exactly what I would do, which is pick this apart. We wanted to create a time-travel logic that was so airtight it could sustain over six hours. There’s some time-travel sci-fi concepts here that I’m eager for my Rick and Morty colleagues to see.”
*  *  *
Waldron found a real-life touchstone for Loki in Apple mogul Steve Jobs. They’re both adopted, he points out, and they love control. ....

 

Collection of some very positive (nonspoilery) tweets by media critics who've seen the first two episodes of Loki (social media embargo was lifted Sunday, and the review embargo will be lifted Tuesday)...

Loki Reactions Are In, Here’s What People Are Saying About Tom Hiddleston's Disney+ Series
SYDNEY SKUBIC     JUN. 7. 2021 
https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2568593/loki-reactions-what-people-are-saying-tom-hiddleston-disneyplus-series


Also, I can't decide if this is clever or tacky...

Limited Edition Loki Charms
Lucky Charms    Jun 7, 2021

Quote

There’s been a disruption in our reality and the Lucky Charms we all know and love have shape-shifted into a new mischievously delicious form. ✨ (Thankfully, the cereal and marshmallows in the box were unaffected.) 

Don’t miss out on this limited-edition Loki Charms box at MischievouslyDelicious.com, 11am ET on June 9. You’ll need to act fast since supplies are super limited.

 

Edited by tv echo
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tv echo

(edited)


Owen Wilson Joins the MCU | Marvel Studios' Loki | Disney+
Marvel Entertainment   Jun 7, 2021

Escape | Marvel Studios’ Loki | Disney+
Marvel Entertainment   Jun 7, 2021

“Variant Identified” Clip | Marvel Studios’ Loki | Disney+
Marvel Entertainment   Jun 7, 2021

Help | Marvel Studios’ Loki | Disney+
Marvel Entertainment   Jun 8, 2021

“How Do You Plead?” Clip | Marvel Studios’ Loki | Disney+
Marvel Entertainment   Jun 8, 2021

 

Edited by tv echo
tv echo

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(edited)

Full video of Variety's "Marvel Superpanel" - this was a great panel (definitely worth watching, it's 42:50 minutes long)...

Stars of ‘WandaVision,’ ‘Falcon and The Winter Soldier’ and ‘Loki’ Chat About All Things Marvel
Variety   Jun 9, 2021

-- Mod was Adam Vary, Variety's Senior Entertainment Writer. Panelists were Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan and Tom Hiddleston.

-- When asked when was the last time the five stars interacted with each other, Paul joked that they've been living together during the pandemic "like the Monkees." Others said that it was three years ago (2018) for Endgame's "big scene," but Tom interjected that he wasn't there. Tom added that this panel was the first time the "specific five" of them have been in the same "virtual lot" together, even though there have been a lot of different connections between them.

-- When asked about headlining their own shows after having been supporting players in the MCU, Elizabeth said that it was initially "intimidating," but after speaking to WandaVision's showrunner, Jac Schaeffer, she felt that Jac really understood the Wanda character. Elizabeth also said that she and Paul were very excited to lead their own show. 
Anthony said that he was called to L.A. to have a meeting and bumped into Sebastian, who had also been called in. Neither knew the reason. At the time, Anthony was disappointed to learn that it was going to be a TV show because he didn't think they could take the scope of what had been done in the MCU and put it into a TV show, and he didn't want to be the first "failed entity" of Marvel: "You have all this amazing stuff and then this one thing sucks, and it just happens to be me." He didn't know about the other shows (WandaVision, Loki, etc.) and thought they were sending him and Sebastian "out to pasture like two old cows." He was "mortified." However, once he heard that Kari Skoagland and Malcolm Spellman were on board TFATWS, and once Kevin Feige reassured him that they weren't going to "dumb down the culture," then he was okay with it. Then they started shooting and it was all the same people who did the movies. So it was like going back to work "with your friends."

-- Mod mentioned that Tom "taught like a Loki 101 course to the creative leaders" of his show.
Sebastian: "We were not invited."
Anthony: "Sebastian and I were on the lot, and we were not invited!"
Sebastian: "Everyone was talking about it."
Anthony: "Tom Hiddleston gave a six-hour symposium... and we were not invited!"
Elizabeth: "We were all on the lot."
Anthony added that he and Sebastian were shooting one of their biggest scenes at the time, so they couldn't "sneak out and crash the Tom Hiddleston symposium."
Paul: "Tom, did you have a laser pointer?"
Tom: "There was a white board." (Watch Tom's facial expressions throughout this exchange. He's cracking up.) 

-- Tom: "Let me go back to the beginning... Our show hasn't aired yet, so I have to be careful what I say now... Initially, when Kevin Feige and Louis D'Esposito called me about this - and they were very excited and, um, it was around the Spring of 2018, which was when Infinity War was being released into the world. And they said... 'Disney [is] going to create this streaming platform... We're very excited to present ideas to them. And Loki is one of them, amongst WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Solider.'  So I was like, 'Okay.' And then I was excited. But my first question was, 'How do we do that?' Infinity War was just about to come out and the opening three minutes of that film felt extremely final... (Mod interjected, "You die, Loki dies.") ... They were so kind and generous, but also sort of conclusive about the way that scene was written. I think even Josh Brolin as Thanos says, 'No resurrections this time.' ... There were moments where different people on the production team had lots of different questions about different things from different films - different movies - the six movies I made in the MCU. They were like, 'Why does this costume change to this? And what happened here? And what was the thinking behind - why did this thing end up like that? Why do you use your knives like this in one film and your knives like this in another one?' ... Again, I have to be careful of spoilers. I know you'll be respectful of the need, with two weeks to go.... The show's about lots of things, but it's probably - an element of it being a kind of - it's about identity, in the way that WandaVision maybe is about grief. Digging into lots of different aspects of Loki and, um, you know, the shapeshifter who is constantly changing shape. So what's his authentic shape? Does he have one? ... I was fielding lots of questions from the production team.... (Anthony interjected, "Six hours, Tom! Six hours... Symposium. Six hours!") ... It wasn't six... Two, maybe... Like, an hour , with a Q&A... (Anthony interjected, "Tom! Q&A? There was a Q&A! ... Sorry, sorry. Love you. Sorry!") ... So I said to Kate Herron, our director, I said, 'Would it be helpful if I gave everybody all the information at the same time?' And Kate and Kevin Wright, our producer, were like, 'That's a brilliant idea." ... It then became a kind of Loki lecture... I'm crushed with shame and embarrassment that this thing has even happened and - and is now out in the world... But if you guys want the kind of Cliff Notes on it, I can probably type them up. I can send you a copy - if you really want it."  
Paul then said that he didn't think he could hold a 30-minute lecture on his character, saying: "Oh my God, Tom Hiddleston is so prepared." Paul added that he just did what he always does, "which is, learn my lines and hope for the best."
Anthony: "Swing for the fence, baby!"
Paul also said that it was "kind of intimidating" because he was playing opposite his stunt guy "and he was kind of better than me." 

-- Mod then asked if they have "go-to ways" of avoiding revealing spoilers when answering questions. 
Tom said that the biggest secret he ever kept for a long time was Loki's death scene in Infinity War. Kevin Feige told him about it when Tom was filming Thor: Ragnorak.
Elizabeth said that she told everyone in her personal life but "no one in the press." She then said that she thought Sebastian would be very good at answering this question.
Sebastian: "What? No... Absolutely not. I'm very worried about any trusting whatsoever. Before this Variety call, I had a conversation with Anthony where I was like, 'I just want to know that you'll be on this call.' I can't be alone. I like - I have like - I think I have an attachment issue now to him. Like, I can't even like do this...."
Elizabeth then said that it was a "big brother, little brother" thing.(*)
Anthony: "Why am I not the little bro? ... I might be the little brother, how about that?"
Elizabeth: "I think you're like the big brother and Sebastian likes to let his big brother talk - talk, so he can just -"
Sebastian: "Oh, Lizzie, I'm so happy you're -"
Anthony: "I'm not saying anything else."
Elizabeth: "I'm not like putting either of you down by the way.... I'm just observing and saying how I see it."
Sebastian: "I'm just saying, if you ever want to meet at Aroma Cafe in the Valley, I'm in."
Elizabeth (laughing): "Aroma Cafe?" 
Tom: "Is this where the therapy scene came from?"
Anthony (laughing): "Right."

(* FYI: Anthony is 42 and Sebastian is 38.)

-- Mod asked Paul about the evolution of his character Vision and how it's been for him to keep coming back to the MCU in a different form. Paul said that it's been great and that the last time it happened, his contract was up and his character had "just been killed twice." When he went to see Kevin Feige, he thought he was going to be fired. Instead, he was told about WandaVision. He replied, "Absolutely. Absolutely. I can keep the kids in private school."

-- Mod asked Sebastian if he knew that his character would be coming back after Bucky fell off the train in Captain America: The First Avenger. Sebastian said that he did not know at that time: "At first, they were going to have this green-sleeved arm and I was like, 'oh, perfect.' And then they were like, 'You know what? We don't know.' So then they gave me the real arm back.... Not much after that." 
Mod then asked when he knew Bucky was returning for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Sebastian replied that he got a call from a friend, who said that he was at San Diego Comic Con and told him, "you're in the title of the next film." And I was like, "Oh. Cool... We seem to find these things out in weird ways, I guess."
When Mod asked how playing Bucky for 10 years has changed his life, Sebastian replied: "You're just trying to kind of like still have some sort of a life, I guess, without someone commenting on it... It's like, if I move this piece of paper from left to right, someone's gonna have something to say about it. And I just think that's really funny." Mod: "You just launched like three blog posts about what that means."

-- Mod asked the entire panel how being part of the MCU has changed their lives professionally in terms of the kinds of projects they can do outside of the MCU and the amount of commitment they have to make to the MCU. 
Elizabeth said that they all now have "a number sign above our heads when we make independent films and whether or not we can sell them internationally to help get financing" and that it allows them to do that. So she thought that it was a "great benefit to being part of such a huge international franchise."
Tom said that he "loves these films" and that he's been in less of them than the other panelists. Even before he became part of the MCU, he loved the first Iron Man movie and thought it was an "amazing movie" and that everyone was "amazing in it." At the time, he couldn't imagine being part of something like that.

-- Mod then asked about fan interactions. Tom and Paul made a few comments.

-- Mod asked about the "world building" in the MCU and what it's like stepping onto the sets in these movies. Elizabeth said that she thought about "how important my wigs are to me" and that she had "like 14 wigs" for WandaVision (for the different decades and for the Scarlet Witch). She also said that they did warm-up vocal exercises to get the "right inflections" for the decade's TV shows. She also mentioned the different sets for each decade's TV show.

-- Mod asked Anthony about the different cities and countries in TFATWS and shooting an international show during a pandemic. Anthony said that, when he read the first script, he thought that it was going to be "this amazing experience where they would be traveling to seven different countries... and, you know, Sebastian was going to hurt his toe trying to be Tom Cruise." Then they were told Atlanta and Puerto Rico, but then the earthquakes in Puerto Rico happened, and then they were told Atlanta and "TBA." Anthony mentioned the uncertainty of locations, the pandemic, the earthquakes, and other "speed bumps" in their path to producing their show. He added that it was a "group effort for cast and crew to keep the morale up" and that every location, opportunity, rewrites, etc., was needed to make the show work. He said that the best thing to happen to them was to have TFATWS moved from the first slot to the second slot, because WandaVision was so amazing that it "set the vocabulary for what Marvel was going to do in this streaming universe." When you saw how great WandaVision was and how it "still stood the test of the cinematic universe," it made the audience "fall in line with the new scope of what Marvel was gonna be... So, thank you, Paul and Lizzie." He added that every single show was a team effort, joking: "We'll see about Loki."
Tom: "We had the best crew of all time."
Elizabeth: "No. We had the best crew of all time."
Anthony: "We had the crew that didn't sit through a symposium."
Tom added that about 2/3 of Loki was made after the lockdown: "Coming back, we did about six weeks of Loki. Then pandemic hit. Shutdown. We came back, uh, five months later - four and a half months." He wanted to give a "public salute" to his crew.

-- Sebastian asked Tom if he got to improvise or if he had to stick strictly to the script. Tom replied that, in his every experience with Marvel Studios, it's been a mixture of the two - you start with a written script, but "it can spin off and change," depending on the scene and complexity of the sets and shots. But there's always "room to play."
Sebastian said it reminded him of shooting TFATWS and having to remind Anthony that Daniel Brühl was in the scene. Anthony just laughed.
Tom praised Owen Wilson for being "inventive." He added that the Marvel Studios experience is like working with Kevin Feige, who is willing to try new ideas.

-- Anthony asked Tom how many times he talked to Kevin Feige while shooting Loki. Tom replied that it was about six times and that, because of the pandemic, Kevin was in touch about the shutdown.
Sebastian interjected that Anthony was only asking because "Anthony was calling him every Friday night."
Anthony (laughing): "Okay. Maybe once every two weeks."
Elizabeth: "Paul'd text Kevin every other day."
Paul: "I was booking this trip to Greece and I had to know how much I could spend."


Global Fan Event | Marvel Studios’ Loki | Disney+
Marvel Entertainment    Jun 9, 2021

 

Edited by tv echo
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Morrigan2575

Morrigan2575

https://deadline.com/2021/06/loki-first-day-viewership-scores-record-for-disney-marvel-series-per-samba-tv-1234773100/

Loki‘s 890k households bested the first day of The Falcon and the Winter Solider (759k) and WandaVision (655k). Loki‘s viewership also bests the four-day premiere weekend of Cruella on Disney+, but that pic was available to subscribers at $29.99.

  • Love 1
tv echo

tv echo

(edited)

Tom Hiddleston doesn't enter this podcast until after the 17:00 mark...

Also, here's links to recent Loki cast/producer interviews (to reduce downloading delays, I've only posted YouTube links and not embedded the videos themselves)...

LOKI Creators SHUT DOWN Mephisto Theory, Talk Timelines | Full Interview
Entertainment Tonight   Jun 9, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4da-U-gk14w

Interview: Director Kate Herron on balancing Loki series with drama and comedy
blackfilmandtv    Jun 7, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ1ZTpIaT6s

The Cast of 'Loki' Interview (Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wunmi Mosaku)
Comicbook.com  Jun 8, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Luxt4AWu2TQ

Tom Hiddleston Reveals Loki's Final Thoughts in Avengers: Infinity War
Comicbook.com  Jun 7, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP05CRvg_ug

Tom Hiddleston Says Owen Wilson Hasn't Replaced Chris Hemsworth Bromance
Access   Jun 8, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLC-FjI8M60

Interview: Tom Hiddleston On Why ‘Loki’ Is Always A Riddle To Solve But Fascinating To Watch
blackfilmandtv    Jun 7, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c66wEONe_iw

Tom Hiddleston on Whether Loki Will Ever Get a Love Interest & How Kenneth Branagh Changed His Life
Collider Interviews   Jun 7, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ydb2WJnks

Loki: Tom Hiddleston on Acting With Owen Wilson and Their 'Odd Couple' Chemistry (Exclusive)
Entertainment Tonight   Jun 8, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GQOetQTzcs

Tom Hiddleston on Auditioning for THOR Before He Was Cast as Loki! (Flashback)
Entertainment Tonight   Jun 9, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ucAtJXdx6w

Tom Hiddleston on his first solo Marvel project 'Loki' | etalk
etalk   Jun 8, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF3g_XYvMyU

Tom Hiddleston Talks ‘Loki,’ Plus: He Rates Chris Hemsworth’s Dance Moves
extratv    Jun 8, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsuJQzAZxNo

TOM HIDDLESTON talks LOKI, Marvel villains, shape shifting and more!
Andrew Freund   Jun 8, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoeGFU6xds8

Tom Hiddleston Talks LOKI Series, Fan Crushes and the MCU Moment He WISHES He Was In | FUN INTERVIEW
Jake's Takes   Jun 6, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-y2DVWEZes

Tom Hiddleston on Loki Premiere, Meeting Chris Hemsworth & Matt Damon Stealing His Part
Jimmy Kimmel Live   Jun 9, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icIQPnecgnU

'LOKI' interview with Tom Hiddleston | Why he thought the character was done
Trey Mangum   Jun 9, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HygebOnXqHQ

OWEN WILSON, GUGU MBATHA-RAW and WUNMI MOSAKU talk 'Loki!'
Andrew Freund   Jun 9, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIdVTGI8WwQ

'Loki' Star Owen Wilson on Joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Variety   Jun 10, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBUag3B5lPU

Interview: Owen Wilson talks Marvel films and playing Mobius M. Mobius in Loki series
blackfilmandtv    Jun 9, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elGc1QWy_aE

Loki: Owen Wilson on How Tom Hiddleston TAUGHT HIM About the MCU (Exclusive)
Entertainment Tonight   Jun 8, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EagCt16gys

Loki’s Gugu Mbatha-Raw on Overseeing the God of Mischief’s Fate (Exclusive)
Entertainment Tonight   Jun 8, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEiukCxDSZg

Wunmi Mosaku Loved Improv'ing On Set With Owen Wilson, Tom Hiddleston | EXTENDED
ET Canada    Jun 8, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xR7vDhmysg
 

Here Are the Best Superhero Shows to Watch on Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, Hulu, and More
Lindsay MacDonald   June 10, 2021
https://www.tvguide.com/news/best-superhero-shows-watch-netflix-hulu-amazon-disney/ 

Quote

Loki
...
After years of playing narrative foil to Chris Hemsworth's Thor, Tom Hiddleston's fan-favorite god of mischief finally gets his own moment in the spotlight, and free from that pesky conscience. Like WandaVision, this one has a fun gimmick in that it's a crime thriller that follows the alternate version of Loki who stole the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame, an event that basically broke reality. And, as these things go, it's now his responsibility to fix what he started. He's recruited by Owen Wilson's Mobius M. Mobius at the mysterious Time Variance Authority (TVA) to travel through history and correct the timeline he messed up. The series is the closest thing to putting an actual comic book on screen, full of madcap twists and turns, and seemingly self-contained, without having to place so much emphasis on setting up for future MCU installments. -Allison Picurro [Watch on Disney+]

 

Edited by tv echo
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shoetingstar

shoetingstar

1 hour ago, tv echo said:

Gugu Mbatha-Raw is Judge Renslayer | Marvel Studios’ Loki | Disney+
Marvel Entertainment    Jun 11, 2021

 

Can't wait to see what Gugu Mbatha-Raw's Judge Renslayer (what a cool name!) And Wunmi Mosaku's Hunter B-15 will get to do in the rest of the season. Very cool that they are the 2nd and 3rd leads.

Very interested in the Renslayer and Mobius dynamic after the 1st episode and this featurette.

tv echo

tv echo

(edited)

Many Sides of Loki | Marvel Studios' Loki Cast & Creators
Marvel Entertainment   Jun 12, 2021

Quote

Hear from the cast and creators of the series on their thoughts about Loki and their alternate timeline selves!

Cheers | Marvel Studios’ Loki | Disney+
Marvel Entertainment   Jun 12, 2021

Michael Waldron Goes Deep on ‘Loki,’ ‘Doctor Strange 2,’ and How He Got His Break in Hollywood
BY STEVE WEINTRAUB   JUNE 12, 2021
https://collider.com/michael-waldron-doctor-strange-2-loki-interview/  

Quote

Before I watched the first two episodes of Loki, I landed an extended interview with Waldron where we talked about a myriad of subjects. Besides sharing how he broke into the industry and what he learned from watching Dan Harmon work, we spent a lot of time talking about the making of Loki, the Time Variance Authority, the rules of time travel, how it really is working with Marvel on huge projects, what he learned in the Loki writers room that he’ll take to other series, landing the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness job and what it was like collaborating with director Sam Raimi for a year, how they built on what WandaVision set up, and I tried to get him to talk about Star Wars with limited success.
*  *  *
Okay, jumping back now to so you're meeting with Marvel to pitch on Loki. Did you ever think you were going to get it or were you like, "I'm just happy to be in the room"?
WALDRON: No. I thought I was going to get it, but that's my attitude, I guess, hopefully as unarrogantly as that can sound, but I think you got to be confident. I was excited to be in that room, but I also knew of every Marvel property, a show about Loki time traveling might be the best shot I ever had. That was as in my wheelhouse as I was ever going to find a project. I had a really clear vision for what I wanted the show to be that, by and large, is kind of the show that we got to go make. I told them on day one, I said, "This should be the best show ever. The ceiling for this is best show anybody's ever seen."
*  *  *
Cut to you get the job, how much had Marvel figured out about this series and how much is it a collaboration with your idea, your pitch? What's that dynamic like?
WALDRON: They certainly had the sandbox figured out, in that, they knew that they wanted to put Loki in the TVA. That was the big idea for Marvel, and that's the genius of those guys, is they knew putting this villain, this chaotic being in this organization that is quite literally all about order and continuity is going to be such a fun entertaining juxtaposition. So that was the springboard for our story. And then, from there, it was a collaboration. The Marvel executives are very involved to the great benefit of the show. Kevin Wright, one of the producers on the show, was in our writer's room every day and he essentially functioned as another writer and was a brilliant contributor to our staff and to the overall story and everything. Same thing with Stephen Broussard, who was our senior executive. Those guys are in the weeds with you figuring out the creative together.

You come into Marvel and it's easy to be concerned as a creator. You're almost prepared to compromise, because you're working at Marvel, because it's like, "Look, I'm going to have to fit into a box and I'm going to have to play their game and everything. And I was shocked that it was quite the opposite of that. It was very much like, "Here's the kind of show we want to make, what kind of show do you want to make?" Trusting me to do that. When we brought on Kate Herron, trusting her. What was the kind of vision we all wanted to execute? And then, trusting that that would all fit organically into the broader Marvel system.
*  *  *
You land the job, you're writing the show, was there a start date that they had already figured out? Were you against the wall like, "We need to write this within three months, because we're going to be shooting?" Can you talk about the pre-production and the writing process in relation to when you're actually going to shoot this thing?
WALDRON: I'm trying to remember the exact, because everything got tossed around, because of COVID and I'm trying to remember when we were first supposed to air and everything. I mean, it was an intense schedule. It was like Falcon and Winter Soldier was first. WandaVision was after them. And then, we were always going to be third. So, there was a mark to hit. Then, Falcon and Winter Soldier and WandaVision flip-flopped, because COVID and everything. But we always knew, all right, we're third out the gate, so we had to hit the ground running. There was an initial writing period, challenging in that, in that 20 week writing period, I also had to write the pilot.

Normally, in television, you write the pilot in a totally separate development process and you kind of establish the world, and then you bring the writers in and everything. We had to be working, writing the pilot, figuring that out saying, "All right, here's the show. We know this is enough of what it is, now let's forge ahead and keep figuring this out," because the clock was ticking, in a way. It was never like we were rushed, it was, "Hey, this is a big show for Disney Plus. Don't fuck around."
*  *  *
Completely. One of the things that I've admired, thus far, about the MCU shows on Disney Plus is, the action set pieces they put on the air are movie quality. I'm just curious, what is that like in the writer's room, when you guys were doing Loki, in terms of writing these big set pieces, and did you ever write something and then Marvel was like, "This is great, but you need to make it bigger"?
WALDRON: No. I mean, if anything, and again this is a testament to our producers, they encouraged us to dream as big as we could. When I knew, "All right, and this will be an action scene," and it's like, "Here's the centerpiece action sequence in this episode." It was like, "Go for it. Go for broke. Write the craziest thing in the world." They have the benefit of knowing, which I didn't at the time, because I hadn't been through the Marvel system, those action set pieces are then going to go to the director and the DP and a team of pre-vis folks and storyboard artists, who are going to hopefully pick the best elements out of our scripts. It's like, "All right, what are the ideas that are good," we'll use those. The ideas that are bad we'll throw away and it's like, "You're going to trust these action geniuses who literally choreograph these sequences for a living and the stunt teams and everything. And it'll just become another part of the stew that is all these amazing action scenes.

What did you learn making the series that, if you were to make another Marvel/MCU/Disney+ series, you would take with you?
WALDRON: What did I learn? Don't write one about time travel, because it's a pain in the ass. (laughing) No, I mean, I think it's understanding, and this applies to any writer's room, probably, but more so even in the Marvel system and I say to remember that the writer's room, you're the first department on. And that, eventually, there's going to be production design and there's going to be storyboard artists and there's going to be pre-vis. There's going to be all this stuff, and to remember that everything you write, it's going to become a collaboration with a lot of different other geniuses who are great and who have ideas and who are going to be plussing your ideas, changing stuff for production purposes, for a million different reasons. And if anything, to let that take some the of pressure off of the writer's room, to just hone in on the emotional story and everything and the stuff, the dialogue and everything. I think I probably would've done a little bit less taught choreography of some fight scenes, had I known just how much better they were all going to be at it than I was.
*  *  *
I've spoken to a lot of people that after they work on something involving time travel, they're like, "I'm never going to do time travel in anything ever again." I'm curious, how did you guys come up with the rules of time travel and did you have to develop it with Marvel so the rules that you do in this are going to be followed by anything else with Marvel, involving time travel?
WALDRON: I know, yeah. It's bad news for them. All over our writer's room, our white boards were just covered in timelines. And it's just, "No, time travel works this way," "No, time travel works that way." That was the great challenge of our show, it was because the Time Variance Authority is an organization that literally manages and polices all of time, we had to define what time is to them and what time is in the MCU. How does it move? What is time travel? How does it operate? We had to essentially create an institutional knowledge among the writer's room. A foundation of what constitutes a broken time law and what doesn't, so that we could then just, which is about Loki breaking a time law, and then you have to move all that stuff as far to the background as humanly possible, because you don't want the audience focusing on the rules of time travel during your show.

So, that was our challenge and also just the fact that it's one thing to do a time travel movie, you watch it, you walk away, maybe you realize some of it didn't make sense, but that's okay, it's a movie. We got six episodes. Folks are going to have a week in between each one of these things to pick them apart. I kept telling our writers, "Look guys, they're going to hold our feet to the fire. We've got to make this as airtight as we possibly can, so it can withstand a week of scrutiny every episode."

And people freeze framing things to examine... Marvel fans love to dissect everything, but I am curious with the rules of time travel, did you guys come up with, because there's many different versions of time travel that have been depicted in both TV and movies. There are some things where someone does something and it's an instant change on the timeline, and there's other things sort of like the Back to the Future method, where everything's soft and it's slowly losing focus until it's gone. Can you talk about, did you come up with one of these sort of versions?
I guess I can just say we certainly had to pick a path. It's like Endgame laid the foundation for what time travel is in the MCU. It was our job to build that out further and to identify, "All right, how does this work? How does it look? Is time travel magic? Is it scientific? Is it engineered, is it cast?" Those are all questions we had to ask and define for ourselves. I think that what's fun about the TVA is it takes something remarkable, like time travel, and really packages it in a very soulless, sort of bureaucratic way. That's what was exciting to me, as a writer, was to take something so magical and just make it utterly soulless.
*  *  *
One of the things I think that might be cool for you guys on Loki is that you're introducing a whole organization and all these characters that have never been shown on screen. I'm very curious how much does Marvel want a backstory of all these new characters and the organization. For example with the TVA, how much of that whole organization and the members of that organization do you guys have to lay a bible out to explain everything, so future MCU things can... they know what the rules are and how much is it, "You know? We don't really got to figure it out. It's first time on camera. Someone else can figure it out when you want to do it again"?
WALDRON: Well, I think one of the joys of being a writer in the Marvel world is getting to make terrible messes and leave them for your predecessors. Although, occasionally, you find yourself being your own predecessor. For instance, you write the Loki show and then you end up writing Dr. Strange 2, having to clean up your own mess and that can be a lot of fun. It's certainly important to define the rules, the background, the history of this organization, as much as we can to tell the story. But ultimately, all that's canon is what winds up on camera. So everything between those lines is open for interpretation, changing and everything. It's like somebody wants to do a story with the TVA moving forward, certainly we can have a conversation and I can tell them, "Hey, here's what I thought maybe it would be," but that's their thing, at that point, and they should take it in their own direction.


From Loki to Doctor Strange and Star Wars, Michael Waldron Is the New Franchise Whisperer
BY WILLIAM GOODMAN   JUNE 11, 2021
https://www.gq.com/story/loki-michael-waldron-showrunner-doctor-strange-multiverse-madness-kevin-feige-star-wars-interview 

Quote

... GQ caught up with Waldron to talk about how Loki’s desire for control makes him like Steve Jobs, creating the rules for time travel, collaborating with Raimi, and why family matters in Star Wars stories. Oh, and heads up, spoiler warning for the Loki premiere.
*  *  *
What was it about Loki as a character that attracted you?
He’s just fun, for one. He has a very playful sense of humor about him. I like how he never quite lets you know what he’s thinking. Beyond that, what I connect to about him is the same thing the legions of fans do, which is his humanity and his vulnerability. This is a guy who—yes, on the one hand, he was the prince of Asgard, seems like a nice life—but his father, in fact, killed his actual birth father, adopted him, lied to him about his heritage and parentage his entire life, he was forced to live in the shadow of his oafish older brother who was born to be king. He’s experienced a lot of trauma, and I think that what he’s looking for is just a little bit of control over his life. Which he feels like maybe he’s never quite had. That’s something I think we can all relate with.

Was that element of control what you wanted to lean into with the series? Or was there something more specific you felt the show could explore that the movies hadn’t a chance to do?
It was certainly a big component of it. I love the Danny Boyle Steve Jobs movie. There’s a bit in there that [ Aaron] Sorkin pulled from the Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs biography, just talking about how Steve Jobs was adopted and how people who are adopted are out of control at the most important moment of their lives. And that movie is about how Steve Jobs is so obsessive about end-to-end control over all this technology. I drew a really interesting parallel between Loki and Steve Jobs: The desire to rule. “I know best. I want to rule. I want to be in control as an adult because I was, in fact, so out of control as a young Frost Giant baby.”

Beyond that, I really wanted to treat it like great TV, which is to say, self-reflection about Loki’s identity. Forcing Loki to really assess, “Who am I? Why do I do the things I do?” I don’t know if that’s stuff you necessarily get to do in a blockbuster, two-hour movie. But in a six-episode tv show featuring a blockbuster supervillain, it’s pretty cool to get to do that.

A lot of that self-reflection comes through the interrogation sequence with Owen Wilson’s Mobius. Can you talk about the process behind casting him and what you were looking for in a scene partner for Tom?
I wrote Mobius not with any actor in mind, just kind of conceptualizing an original character—which was fun because Loki himself was so well-defined as Tom. What was most important in casting Mobius was somebody whose energy was totally different than Loki’s. And then also someone who was likable. Somebody who had a sense of inherent goodness.

You know, I often reference Tom Hanks. Mobius is a character that a younger Tom Hanks would have played. The idea is that those two qualities would add up to great chemistry with Loki. My hats off to Kate Herron, our director, Kevin Wright, our senior producer, and Sarah Finn, our casting producer—it was that little brain trust that came up with the idea for Owen. As soon as that was put out there, it was like, “Oh my god, that’s so inspired.”

Then Kate had a conversation with him where she had to pitch this entire, very complicated show. He’s a writer himself and a really thoughtful artist. And Kate clearly sold the hell out of it because Owen signed up immediately. So thank God.

To your point about Owen being a talent in his own right, did scripts change at all once you had him on board in order to play more to his comedic strengths?
There was much less of that than you might think. I think what was appealing about the character to him was to play a little bit against type, to not be playing a character who was outright clowning around but instead is a just desk jockey. I didn’t go in and go, “Alright, I’ve got Hansel from Zoolander now, time for a setup and punchline.”

Instead, we knew what a great dramatic actor Owen is, and let’s trust the comedy is going to come organically with him, which it does. And yeah, Owen and I worked together on dialogue and stuff, and he riffed and improvised and everything. As with any actor, especially in the MCU, you’re working with them and building and shaping that character together.

Setting up rules for time travel can get pretty complicated pretty quickly. How did you strike a balance between expanding the depth and breadth of what's possible in the MCU without it being too overwhelming?
That’s the trick, right? That was our biggest challenge. You don’t want to unravel the whole sweater that came before you. We worked really hard to create a shared institutional knowledge of how time travel was going to work in this show, which meant a lot of drawing of lines on whiteboards, and then other squiggly lines and everything.

Once we had that, then it was like, now let’s pretend we’re our grandparents watching this show and we’ve never seen anything in the MCU before. How can we now convey all this information in a way that’s understandable, gets the point across, but is also hopefully entertaining—but can withstand scrutiny. It’s a time travel show! There’s not a lot of those, probably for a reason— [because] the more episodes, the more opportunities for plot holes. That was the biggest thing we had to watch out for, but our writers were more than game, and everybody knew how important it was. We took probably two weeks out of the writer’s room early on and just said, “Let’s just lay that foundation.” Once we had that, we were off to the races.

I want to talk about who I thought stole the show in the premiere, and that’s TVA Mascot Miss Minutes. How did you all create her, and how did you cast iconic voice actress Tara Strong in the role?
Yeah, Miss Minutes! Obviously inspired by Mr. DNA from Jurassic Park, came from us having conversations in the writer’s room [around] how would the TVA let people know what they’re brought in there for and what’s the most non-threatening way to do that. Of course, this bureaucratic kind of Clippy—the old Microsoft paperclip—sort of character. That’s where Miss Minutes was born out of. I’m from the South, so I made her say, “Hey, y’all!” That’s my biggest contribution to the show [laughs] and a nod to my hometown.

Getting Tara—it was important to have a great voice actor in that role because we knew we were going to be delivering a lot of exposition, frankly, with that character. Literally what she’s doing to Loki is delivering exposition. So we wanted somebody who could do that in an entertaining way and also understood just the process of voice acting and animation. It’s like, “Alright, we’re gonna call you back several times because we’ll be rewriting this stuff down the wire.”

How did you settle on Loki being the villain of his series? Was that something Kevin Feige had already planned?
I think that was something I brought to the table in my pitch, that Loki is brought into the TVA and is in fact enlisted to help catch another rogue version of Loki.

 

Edited by tv echo
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