#i say 'self-aware' but i kind of like the idea of TVA Loki not quite understanding that The Torments were not inflicted for his own benefit

[nostalgia-tblr]

it'd be a lot easier to stop the fun banter turning unexpectedly dark if i didn't insist on letting the characters have some level of self-awareness :|

[neyafromfrance95]

Sylvie Laufeydottir in the Fanfics.

i love all the different takes on Sylvie in the fanfiction and i think that the fic writers should be bold when it comes to experimenting with her characterization, so i don't mean to be dogmatic or anything about it, but i think there is fun in trying to grasp the essential traits of a character and trying to write them as in-character as possible as well.

and if i'm being completely honest, there are not a whole lot of fics that have Sylvie characterized in a very "canon accurate" way.

i'm not saying that i am the one who has this correct idea of what kind of a character Sylvie is, but here are my two cents on what makes Sylvie - Sylvie.

first of all, here is what i think some people get wrong about Sylvie:

when she is reduced to exhaustion and stress.

it's true that Sylvie is an anxious character with many issues caused by her struggles, but Sylvie we saw in the series is passionate and driven.

when her one true dream and a final destination beyond revenge is settling down into a domestic lifestyle.

there is no hint of Sylvie dreaming about an uneventful, quiet, ordinary life. the flashbacks into her past suggest that her dream (and possibly her glorious purpose) was to be a hero. we see Sylvie living a low-key life in S2 teaser, and she doesn't look happy at all, she looks depressed af, which indicates that such lifestyle is not right for her.

Sylvie being sadistic.

i think the series makes a point that Sylvie is not sadistic at all. she never does more than necessary to her enemies, she is not cruel for the sake of being cruel. yes, she is feral and competitive, but those aren't the same as sadism. she puts Hunter C in a safe mental space while investigating her, she empathizes with Hunter B, she kills HWR with a quick stab. compare her approach to her enemies to pre-series!Loki's and Ravonna's - they tend to verbally hurt, scare and humiliate their enemies.

the only argument Sylvie has for fighting against Kang being "he wronged me."

yes, she is motivated by a personal vendetta. yes, she can be quite single-minded. but! her experiences with the the tva, awareness of who they are and what they represent, have shaped her worldview. Sylvie is an idealistic character, her revenge boils down to "he hurt me", but she has to believe that her mission is serving a good cause against the oppressive fascists. i believe this is why she is so discouraged and passive in the teaser of S2 - Kang tarnished her idealistic perception of her life's work. she doesn't feel like a hero any more, and it mattered a lot to her that she was a hero - Loki validating her heroism was one of the reasons why she fell for him.

Sylvie being a manipulative femme fatale.

another aspect of her persona that is portrayed very clearly in the series is her honesty. she is a straightforward character, always true to who she is. her kiss was not a deception, it was an expression of her feelings and emotions that exploded when Loki told her that he only cared about her.

Sylvie being overly-apologetic to the tva and Loki.

while Sylvie might feel like she fucked up and have an existential crisis, i highly doubt that she would feel apologetic to the very people who kidnapped her when she was a child and stalked her with an ill intent. "these new Kangs are bad so you were right when you destroyed my world and oppressed me" doesn't feel like an authentic Sylvie response. she most probably feels bad for pushing Loki away, but not to the point of self-depreciation and begging for forgiveness since she still felt backstabbed by him bc he did betray her, technically - he went back on his word and got in the way of her glorious purpose.

let's now move on to the aspects of her characterization that are pretty essential. i won't be elaborating too much on these for now.

she is assertive and strong-willed.

she does everything on her own terms, never compromising.

the themes of freedom and choice play a very important role in her story.

she has the pathological trust issues, and some anger issues as well.

she has probably been to every corner of the multiverse without ever settling in one place, so she never got to properly socialize within any cultural framework and she was exposed to the countless cultures. so, she has to be very nonconforming.

a glorious purpose means everything to Sylvie. it gives her life a meaning and is her driving force. out of all Lokis, it's probably Sylvie who values and prioritizes the glorious purpose the most.

she is truly like a feral cat in many ways.

she is the Multiverse Liberator.

(i always thought that out of all fictional characters, Sylvie is the most similar to Arya from ASOIAF btw)

but in the end of the day, we are still a new fandom, so it's understandable that there aren't many fics that have an astonishingly canon accurate characterization. it's ok and please don't hold yourself back from writing Sylvie if you are unsure about her characterization. the more you write and try, the better your vision of a character becomes! that's how the writing improves. also, i would encourage you to explore Sylvie's relationships with other characters as well. i mean, there is just so much to Sylvie's dynamic with Kang and Ravonna, it'd be interesting to write about Sylvie's journey around the multiverse, you all could let your imagination go absolutely wild, the Postman could be the ultimate OC in Sylvie fics (fancasting Will Sharpe, Sophia Di Martino's husband, as the legendary Postman)...

anyways, i think Sylki and Sylvie writers are some of the best fan writers out there (bc let's be real, there are not a lot of fandoms that characterize their faves very accurately to begin with), i'm only trying to say that if you are interested in writing very in-character, it won't be difficult since Sylvie is pretty strongly characterized in the series.

[lokitvsource]

You came into the show with the idea of Loki clashing with the TVA already in place. How exactly does this kind of arrangement work at Marvel? Michael Waldron: There was a creative brief that was 20 pages or so that basically said: “We want to do something about Loki running up against the TVA. Here’s some different avenues that might be cool to explore.” It was really serving it up for writers as a jumping off point for us to put together our pitches. Then I went off and really worked on the idea of Loki being brought in to hunt another Loki, and that becoming the heart of the show, and the Loki/Sylvie relationship. The big thing that I did in my pitch — even as early as pitching it to Kevin [Feige] — I really walked through the six episodes, kind of similar to what they were. I knew I wanted Episode 3, for instance, to be a little bit of a Before Sunrise, with Loki and this character walking across this apocalyptic moon. But Marvel had the initial, probably the most important spark of genius, which was just Loki and the TVA.

Where did the idea of the variant being a female Loki come from? That was one of my ideas, that we then confirmed in the writers room. Yeah, we knew from the get-go that it was going to be Loki falling for another version of himself.

Why was that appealing to you? I love writing any romance; it’s fun. Especially, it hasn’t been done a ton in the MCU. There’s an obviously self-reflective quality to it. And a show that’s quite literally about self-love; it is Loki getting to see parts of himself. At the start of the show, he kind of hates himself. He assesses himself to Mobius as a villain. And then he meets Sylvie, and he sees her as someone on a heroic crusade. He sees the good in her, and is able to see the good in himself.

Mobius suggests that, of course, Loki fell in love with his own variant, because he’s a narcissist. Do you think he’d be capable of falling in love with someone who is not a version of himself? [Laughs] I don’t know if he didn’t fall in love with himself first. Maybe after that, but the first time he falls, maybe this is what it had to be.

What’s the key to telling a time travel story that takes advantage of the concept without confusing the audience? I think it’s doing a lot of work that the audience never sees. It’s really understanding the logic of this thing, building out the TVA as a real organization that actually exists in our minds. Our writers room, we had a TVA handbook, encyclopedia, what they do and why they do it, a glossary of terms. And then you want to only give the audience the absolute bare minimum to understand the story, and to just get swept up in the emotional stakes of everything. If the sci-fi of it all, if the time travel logic of this show did not hold up week to week, then that would have distracted from the emotional journeys of the characters. So I’m glad that even though everyone had to take their medicine a little bit, along with Loki, in episode one, I’m glad it didn’t distract from the story we were telling. And we had the benefit of Loki being the audience’s eyes in. The audience is learning as he is.

There’s a funny scene in Avengers: Endgame where the Avengers start arguing about exactly how time travel works in the MCU. How much did you have to study what other Marvel movies had done with the idea to make sure your rules were consistent? Fortunately, Endgame was the main one, and that’s how they understand it. The TVA is an organization that understands time travel on a deeper level, probably more comprehensively than the Avengers do in Endgame. We wanted to make sure we were staying true to any rules that they laid out, but sort of establishing our own rules. It’s a time travel show. What was I thinking? A movie’s one thing, but a show is hard.

How many Loki variants did you have on the writers room whiteboard at various points? Hundreds. So many different Lokis. There was one Loki, actually maybe it was a version of Mobius that took off his glasses, and he just had really tiny eagle eyes, like he could see everything. There was stuff like that all over the white board. Tom Kauffman, who wrote that fifth episode, he’s an amazing comedy writer, and was on the first three seasons of Rick and Morty. His first draft of that episode was just bananas.

Was there a variant, or a crazy idea in general, that you really loved but couldn’t ultimately do? There was so much different stuff that we wanted to do in the Void. But the truth is, I don’t want to say any of it, because you never know. The ideas that I want to do the most may pop up elsewhere.

Okay, so let’s stick with a variant we did see. Was Alligator Loki actually a Loki, or just an alligator that happened to be wearing a Loki’s crown? A magician can’t reveal his tricks, man. That’s the great debate. Let it rage.

What was Alligator Loki‘s origin story on your side of things? Who pitched him and how was that initially received? That was maybe my very first meeting with the producers at Marvel, Kevin Wright and Stephen Broussard, talking about the show, and me saying, “When we’re doing this, you can encounter lots of different Lokis. You could have an alligator Loki. Why? Cause he’s green.” And us all laughing about how stupid that was. I think I made the point that it’s that energy of what we can do with the show. We can have something like that, but let’s play it straight. Alligator Loki, you get a laugh out of it, but by and large you try and play it straight. That was the fun tonal balance that we tried to strike in the show.

There’s been some conflicting information out there about whether the big bad was originally just going to be He Who Remains, who’s a different comics character altogether from Kang, and whether the casting of Jonathan Majors changed the plan. From your point of view, what happened? The character was always written as a version of Kang, as early as the first draft of the script, we knew in the writers room, relatively early on. He Who Remains, that’s the guy behind the curtain with the TVA, and we saw an opportunity to fuse that mythology with the Immortus mythology. And that was just really compelling. It was a way to elevate, it just felt right for Loki, because Loki was there in the first Avengers, he’s the one who brought the Avengers together, and here is directly related to the exploding of the multiverse, this event that will drive the events of Phase Four. Certainly, when Jonathan came in, it allowed us to step on the gas of just how eccentric and charismatic this character could be. I was inspired in the writing of He Who Remains by Tom Cruise’s character in Magnolia, trying to give it that Frank TJ Mackey energy a little bit. He captures that and then elevates it to something else that’s different and weird.

You just said how important the multiverse is going to be to Phase Four of the MCU. How challenging is it to have to set up this big thing for the larger Marvel endeavor while also serving the needs of the particular story you’re telling on this show? It’s a challenge in the sense that it’s all a relay race, and you’ve got the baton on this thing, and you want to do a great job. The name of the game over at Marvel is with each movie or TV show, make it the best it can possibly be. And they’re really supportive of that, and trust that it will organically fit into the larger blueprint of everything. We were excited about introducing a version of Kang, because yeah, to introduce this new big bad was cool for our show. I was aware, and cautious, of the thing I read in your review, that it might not be the most sound storytelling to introduce a new character at the very end that we’ve never seen before as the big bad of this thing. Obviously, we had the benefit that people know who Kang is, and there’s a meta thing where a portion of the audience knows Jonathan Majors is going to be playing Kang in Phase Four. But the finale was only ever going to work if He Who Remains, in a compelling way, serviced the Loki and Sylvie emotional story. That was the most important job that that character did in the finale: he laid out a very compelling conflict that ultimately drove the two of them apart.

There has also been some confusion as to exactly when you knew that there would be a second season, as opposed to you just making a limited series. Initially, in the writers room, we were not operating as though there would be a second season. And the whole way through was, this should be a story that should stand on its own. I referenced The Leftovers and Mad Men all the time. I think about those seasons, they pushed the overall stories forward, but you can pull any one of those seasons and look at it on its own as an individual story. I wanted that to be the case here, whether we did a second season or not. I think we always felt that we would want to propel Loki forward into the MCU after the conclusion of our season. The only question was, would that be in an appearance in a movie, or would that be in a second season. And it was only over the course of development that the stars aligned to make a second season.

But that end scene, where Mobius no longer recognizes Loki and the TVA is filled with Kang statues, wouldn’t have been a satisfying conclusion to a limited series. That is an ending that only works if there’s going to be a second season. So there is another conclusion to the story that I wrote that exists out there, that I guess is just for me. My own little play, that I perform with my action figures.

What was Sylvie’s original plan, before Loki hijacked her to that dying moon? It was to empty out the TVA. The entire bombing of the Sacred Timeline was to create a diversion. She’s not going to be able to create a multiverse from doing that. Ultimately, the TVA has the manpower to get out and take care of these events, but they’re going to have to scramble a lot of their minutemen teams, and it leaves the Time-Keepers significantly less guarded than they would have been otherwise. That was her plan.

You didn’t come into this as a big comic book nerd. So was there someone on staff who could tell you, “Well, there’s this giant cloud called Alioth that eats time,” or, “Well, one time Thanos had a helicopter,” or maybe someone assigned to you by Marvel? I’m constantly reading the comics but trying to not be so beholden to the and do our own thing. I charged our writers assistant, Ryan Kohler, with, “You’ve got to become the authority on all things TVA, all things Kang, and all that.” So he and my assistant, Sophie Miller, became a support staff who read a ton of these comics and became a wealth of knowledge for the writers to turn to. And then the Marvel producers, obviously are very well versed in the comics. It was Kevin Wright who came in one day and was like somebody throwing down a blueprint in an asteroid movie, going, “Alioth! Look at this!” And we were like, “Ohmigod, this is perfect!” The best thing about working on these comic book shows is that if it’s from the comics, it doesn’t matter how much of a deus ex machina it is, it’s just cool, like, “I can’t believe you pulled that from the comics.” Alioth, that was a big breakthrough that unlocked the last two episodes for us.

That is not a famous comic book that introduces Alioth. It’s an obscure Nineties miniseries, with really ugly art. But you look at it and see what it could be. You say, “If we do this, and it feels like Twister, it’s going to be really cool.”

Was Mobius’ love of jet skis there simply to illustrate his character, or did you have a grander idea in mind? I will come clean: I’m a jet ski guy. I’ve spent a good amount of time on jet skis in my day. I used to tow a jet ski to a lake and ride it in college. So it probably was me. Loki, I was just becoming a steward of that character. Mobius was a character I really felt I got to create from nothing. There’s not really anything to that character in the comics. So bits and pieces of me found their way in. I just think there’s something so poignant — here Mobius is, a guy who is literally fighting to preserve all of time in the multiverse, and yet his interests are maybe the most humble, human, terrestrial, unremarkable thing you can think of. Just a jet ski. And when you’ve got Owen Wilson playing him and it’s just that much better.

Will you be back in some capacity for Season Two? [long pause] Time will tell.

‘Loki’ Head Writer Michael Waldron — and ‘Rick and Morty’ Alum — on MCU, ‘Heels’ and More

[insanityclause]

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details of the first five episodes of Disney+’s Loki, & maybe the finale. Maybe.

EXCLUSIVE: “I have learned, at this point, having said goodbye to the character more than twice, two and a half times maybe, to make no assumptions,” says Loki’s Tom Hiddleston as the hours tick away to the finale of the Disney+ series drops early on Wednesday morning. “We’ll see where the ride goes now,” the Marvel alum adds.

As always with almost any project from the Kevin Feige run studio, that ride could continue, at least in some form or another. Certainly, the June 9 ‘Glorious Purpose’ premiere of the Michael Waldron penned and Kate Herron directed Loki proved to be the Disney+ and the MCU’s biggest small screen success so far. Also with any Marvel project, past Emmy winner Hiddleston was elusive on what could be coming next, be it in the Loki finale, another season or another appearance in the movies as the MCU shifts into its next phrase.

One thing is clear, after a decade playing the God of Mischief, Hiddleston still has a lot of Loki on the brain, in the best way.Leading towards the finale, I chatted with a UK-based Hiddleston about returning to play Loki and the search for who or what controls the seemingly all knowing, all powerful Time Variance Authority. The Night Manager star also spoke about filming during the coronavirus pandemic, working with Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wunmi Mosaku, Richard E. Grant, and Sophia Di Martino, who portrays variant and soulmate Sylvie, and his upcoming AppleTV+ series The Essex Serpent with Claire Danes.

DEADLINE: There’s a great line in this season’s penultimate episode where your Loki and Sylvie are stunned at watch Richard E. Grant’s Classic Loki recreate Asgard to distract Alioth and you say “I think we’re stronger than we realize.” There seems to be a great resonance in the line that there’s a whole lot of Loki coming in the finale and probably more …

HIDDLESTON: I suppose it resonates with the theme that we all wanted to highlight about purpose and about meaning. Loki’s someone who’s probably been deluded by the idea that he’s burdened with glorious purpose, and that perhaps that purpose has been revealed to be fraudulent or meaningless, and maybe his self-image or the role that he has condemned himself to play is redundant.

His experiences through this story have shown him that there are actually more opportunities available to him, and you know, it speaks to this idea, like, can we change? Can we evolve, and in that evolution, is there room to grow? You know, so, I think the stronger than we realize I think is Loki finally understanding that, really, by caring for other people, that maybe there’s power in that, and I found that very touching, and the whole thing is an extraordinary dream.

DEADLINE: Speaking of an extraordinary dream, you have been playing Loki for a decade now, since the first Thor movie, We know you are going to do some voice work in the animated What If…? series, but how has it been having this series directly centering on him, in all his variants, so to speak?

HIDDLESTON: You know Dominic, I have enjoyed it so much, because I felt it was a gift and a privilege to be invited to come and sit at the table and think about what the show might be. Also, I suppose so many of the things that I’ve discovered about Loki as a character in the comics and a character in the Norse myths, in the canon, aspects that I’ve always thought were interesting, and understandably, there hasn’t been time or space in the movies to explore them.

DEADLINE: In terms of who he is?

HIDDLESTON: Those aspects of him have been externalized and embedded into this new story about identity itself and about integrating the disparate fragment of the many selves that he is or perhaps the many selves that we are. You know, we contain multitudes. Loki certainly contains multitudes. We have met many of those multitudes, including Alligator Loki (laughs).

DEADLINE: Sounds like you’re not done with those multitudes yet. From your POV, from conversations with Kevin (Feige) is there more that you see for the character as the MCU heads into its next stages?

HIDDLESTON: Well, I certainly don’t have Kevin’s brain or encyclopedic knowledge or capacity for invention. I’ve been on the ride for a while, and it’s been the most extraordinary journey, and to have lived through different iterations, different phases of the MCU, and I’m so grateful that I’m still here, and it’s been amazing to watch. I feel that the MCU is even more expansive, is even braver, more inclusive than it’s ever been.

DEADLINE: How so?

HIDDLESTON: I think the stories are getting really exciting. Not that they weren’t before, but I think they understand that the investment of the audience is very deep, and they don’t take it for granted for a second. So, yeah, I suppose the perspective I have on how Loki might affect the ongoing course of the MCU is this idea of the multiverse. People have already understood it when Miss Minutes is introducing Loki to the TVA. She talks about the multiverse and the war and that the sacred timeline, which is reality as we know it.

DEADLINE: It opens up the aperture certainly for new stories from all opportunities, doesn’t it?

HIDDLESTON: It raises questions of, well, maybe there are other parallel or alternate universes. Maybe there are other realities, and the possibilities there are endless. I feel that at the end of episode five, Loki and Sylvie are close to discovering the answers to the questions that they have of who is behind the TVA and that, somehow, this will provoke even more curiosity about…

DEADLINE: …Because in the Marvel Universe, answering one set of questions always leads to another set of questions, in many ways.

HIDDLESTON: Right. Yeah. Yeah, and I know that there are lots of, you know, interesting titles of movies that’ve been announced, which kind of hint at where it might be going.

DEADLINE: One of those that hasn’t been officially announced, but is rumored is a Season 2 for Loki, in gear under the temporary title of Architect on call sheets and the like …

HIDDLESTON: Well, yes, maybe, as I say, all the kind of multiple alternate realities are …it’s taken me 10 years to get a handle on this sort of mono timeline. The idea that this might be a multiverse is actually beyond my knowledge of physics.

DEADLINE: Well, I doubt that, but let me ask, and no spoilers for the finale or further, but if Kevin, Marvel, Disney asked you to do more Loki, are you game?

HIDDLESTON: (laughs) I have learned, at this point, having said goodbye to the character more than twice, two and a half times maybe, to make no assumptions. So, I’m also aware that I’m only playing him because of the audience, really. So, it’s not up to me. But I do love playing him, and every time, I seem to find new, interesting things about him. So, yeah, I’m a temporary passenger on Loki’s journey, but we’ll see. We’ll see where the ride goes now.

DEADLINE: On the ride, as the finale looms, there’s a ton of fan speculation out there and so much that people have hooked on to from the show. So, as the man at the center of it, what was your favorite part of Loki the series?

HIDDLESTON: That there was meaning in the making of it.That we crossed the finish line in the middle of a global pandemic and could create something, and more than ever, I felt really grateful for being able to do this job. I think in this there are some of those questions that we were all asking ourselves in the last 18 months in the show, you know, what do our lives mean?📷I love taking Loki in new directions. I love the contributions of my fellow actors, of Owen Wilson and Sophia Di Martino and Richard E. Grant and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Wunmi Masaku, they all brought so much to the table, and I’ll always remember that. You know, I’ll always remember just being in Atlanta with all of them and making our bonkers show. Yeah.

DEADLINE: Making your bonkers show in Atlanta as the world, as America was still in the heat of the pandemic. What was that like, because you were in production and then everything stopped and then you came back, right?

HIDDLESTON: I mean, people have used this word a lot, but it really was unprecedented. I think we did six weeks of filming before the hiatus, and then the production was suspended for four or five months, and we came back. At first, it was unfamiliar because we had to make adjustments, but the thing I remember most of all, quite honestly, is the diligence and resilience and spirit of our cast and crew.

DEADLINE: Really?

HIDDLESTON: Yes, and it remains extremely special for me, this project, for that reason.For me, it just demonstrated the character of these amazing people. It took a huge amount of planning and care and looking after each other. By that, I mean, being in the bubble. So, for many of us, the only other human beings we saw, really, were each other. So, we came to work, and we became a team, and the circumstances fostered this extraordinary team spirit, and so the memory of making it is really my incredible and deep respect and affection for my fellow filmmakers. People like Trish Stanard, our line producer. Richard Graves, our first AD. Kristina Peterson, our second AD. Autumn Durald, DP. Kevin Wright, our supervising producer, and so many others making sure everyone could stay safe and look after each other.It’s really…I find it…it’s very moving, and it’s remarkable, and I just want to salute them all because I couldn’t have done any of it without them.

DEADLINE: In that vein, you have just come off filming The Essex Serpent with Claire Danes for AppleTV+. Very different from Loki, and yet also a tale of what is real and who we are. Is that what attracted you to it on some level?

HIDDLESTON: I read it and immediately connected to it. Read the screenplay, the adaptation. It’s based on a novel by Sarah Perry, which was published in 2016 and is set at the end of the 19th century. It’s an extraordinary story about uncertainty and about our deepest fears and how sometimes our fears can distort our imaginings and how our minds can lie to us. About how we have to guard against that, and Perry sets it in this extraordinary time with a beautiful leading character of Cora Seaborne, played by Claire. Anna Symon adopted it.

There’s this community on the east coast of England who believe that an ancient beast has been awakened by an earthquake and that it’s dislodged all these fossils. But perhaps, it has also dislodged this ancient underwater monster, which has been used to explain certain unusual phenomena. This was in the era when Darwin had just been published a few decades before and people are starting to think, this Charles Darwin, he’s onto something. Still, fear spreads very quickly, and it’s a very fascinating time where science and faith are in conflict.

DEADLINE: When you describe it like that it sounds very Loki indeed.

HIDDLESTON: Maybe the themes are very Loki. Maybe that’s where they join up, but I’m playing a 19th century vicar who is trying to contain his community. You feel very destabilized by all these rumors. So, yeah, to go from Loki to a vicar was definitely new, a new territory.

DEADLINE: Literally and figuratively?

HIDDLESTON: Well, it’s my first significant time in Essex, where we filmed, which I feel embarrassed about. I’ve been to Essex before, but I’ve never been to the very, very eastern, most eastern coast of Essex. It’s the Blackwater Estuary, which then feeds into the River Thames, and it’s a very ancient part of England. It’s so marshy, it’s where in Great Expectations, that’s where Pip meets Magwitch for the first time. It’s all foggy and muddy and marshy and quite atmospheric and a perfect place to set a story about of uncertainty and fear and gothic romance. Clio Barnard directed it, and working with her has been amazing.

DEADLINE: You know, it occurs to me that of all the main Marvel characters, Loki has been such a constant, yet so ethereal in so many ways too. Is it jarring for you to jump back into the role with all the uncertainty it brings?

HIDDLESTON: You know, I’ve always seen it as sort of an extraordinary and surprising constant in my life for a decade. But, I don’t take it for granted because I don’t often…you know, it may end. It has actually ended, and those endings have been conclusive. I really thought a couple of years ago, after I made Avengers: Infinity War, you know, we all know what happens in that scene, and I thought, that’s it.I thought it’s over, and I was really proud to have been part of it. I was grateful for my time, but I thought that, my work would go off in a different direction. So, the idea that I got to come back and have another go was a complete delight, it truly was.

[plainlo-inthemorning]

A little written-in-the-middle-of-the-night Loki fic snippet that just grew another leg. TVA Loki + Lokane. Rating T.

(First part is here)

Shine a Light, part II

The tempad feels hot and slippery in his palm as he stalks down the hallway, quickly putting distance between himself and the hunter he left unconscious amidst overturned chairs and tables in the canteen.

The mess had already been there, leftovers from workers rushing panicked to man their stations. He had simply added one more touch.

Tiny droplets of sweat bead his brow and blood has started seeping though the tear in his crumbled shirt.

The fabric is clinging wetly to his bicep, but in the mayhem unfolding around him, nobody gives him a second glance.

For the first time, he is thankful at least to be wearing the anonymous uniform dictated by the oppressors.

He reaches the kill me kind of room again and shuts the door behind him.

You were meant to cause suffering and death.

You’re a cosmic mistake.

You were meant to die at the hands of the mad titan.

Lies.

All lies.

Still projected on the wall is the paused image of a lost memory of his unfulfilled fate.

He sees himself, Thor and her on the barren planet with the black soil. The man he never became is lying on the ground, Thor cradling him.

She watches them both in shock.

It resonates in his bones. He has to go there.

He has to reach his brother at this precise, excruciatingly rare moment of heroism. His act of heroism.

Before the scheming and deceit poison their bond once more in an endless loop of disappointment.

In this moment, all is forgiven. Thor will listen and help. A different path will branch.

And he has to go to her.

It is ludicrous, this riddle, yet the truth of it presses hard on his chest.

On the grainy roll of film, he saved her life and her eyes bore into his with such intensity, his acute need still reverberates like an echo between the walls of the kill me kind of room.

The smell of lilacs lingers.

What will happen when he faces his own self on the timeline, he can’t imagine. Also, he gives it little thought at this late stage with universal logic already suspended as it is. Hopefully he can reason with the man he was meant to be.

He has had quite enough of being his own past, present and future selves’ worst enemy.

And so he pushes the buttons on the tempad.

//

Something is very wrong.

The sky is too blue, the distant sound of waves lapping calmly at a shore is misplaced.

He has emerged from the door onto a quiet gravel road lined with tall grass and low pines. A single, white wooden house stands to his left, surrounded by a lawn dotted with wildflowers. The sun is warm on his back.

This is Midgard, he is sure of it.

How could he shoot past his destination so spectacularly?

He is about to scroll down the list of numbers and names on the tiny screen of the tempad when he notices a man approaching. Old, walking leisurely with a round, short-legged dog much the same white color as the mortal’s own wispy hair.

The latter starts a little when he spots Loki.

And then he does the most unexpected thing and speaks his name.

Loki’s name.

He almost drops the tempad (no! Not again) and the old one grins good-naturedly. “Hold on to your fancy phone there. Far away, were we?”

Loki only just about stops himself from shaking the man by his shoulders. His fists clench uncontrollably.

“What year is this?! How do you know my name?”

His voice sounds shrill, feverish, and unsurprisingly the eyes in the lined face before him go wide with puzzlement and … something else.

“Loki, what on Earth? Are you quite alright?”

Shock washing over him, Loki staggers back. H-how?

But the man is closing the gap between them, oozing concern. “Have you - are you drunk?” he asks incredulously.

He reaches out.

What is happening?

Loki shies away from the touch, his mind spinning.

Forcibly gathering his composure, he straightens and wills his words to come out steady. “No, I’m okay. Apologies. A bad joke”.

He smiles reassuringly. It takes more effort than parting an ocean.

The dog is sniffing insistently at his ankles.

The man looks him over with suspicion but the worry is subsiding. “Okay, then… no harm, no foul. You know, sometimes these peculiar ‘jokes’ of yours can make a neighbor all kinds of slightly worried”.

Neighbor?

“Most understandably, won’t happen again. Sorry to have bothered you”. Loki cuts him off smoothly. “Have a nice day”. He nods and turns before hysteria can creep into his voice.

“In case you need it for your punchline, the year is 2016”, the man calls over his shoulder as he shuffles away, pulling the reluctant dog after him.

Loki’s blood runs cold. 2016. Oh, this is so wrong. Three years wrong.

Did he hit another button at the last minute? He had been clutching the tempad so hard the edges cut into his fingers.

He curses his own impatience. Tech savvy indeed.

Holding up the blasted piece of TVA wizardry, he tries to enter a new series of numbers when his name rings out again.

And again, he almost jumps. But this time, his heart stays in his throat.

//

“Loki? What are you doing out here? I’ve been looking all over for you”.

Her voice reaches him from the porch of the white house. She is skipping lightly down the steps, the screen doors left open behind her. Music drifts into the garden from somewhere inside.

She is crossing the lawn. He is no longer breathing.

Her long auburn hair is tied back in a ponytail, and she is wearing a light blue summer dress. Her feet are bare.

Absurdly, he notes that she looks more tanned than the last time he saw her through the visor of the destroyer in the desert. A year and a lifetime ago. To him.

His grip on whatever reality he’s been clinging to since New York is seriously faltering.

She is beaming. He cannot move a muscle.

She comes all the way up to him and without pause wraps her slender arms around his neck. He can feel the warmth of her body through his shirt, smell the perfume of her skin. She smells of … -

“Where did you go, handsome?” She smiles playfully.

“Pepper called earlier to say that she actually got Tony out of the door on time, if you can believe it, so they’ll be here any minute. And her and I agreed that you two hotheads are going to play nice tonight, okay?”

She is teasing him but he hardly understands the words she’s saying. It makes no sense.

And then, before he can begin to form a response, she stands on tiptoes and kisses him and the world falls away.

Reflexively, he puts his arms around her, drawing her close to him. She moans happily. He leans into the kiss, not knowing what he’s doing other than that he never wants to stop.

Her mouth is soft and warm and new and familiar all at the same time, and the way her fingers curl in his hair sends electricity shooting down his spine.

It should be all anguish and tragic confusion, like before in the castle beyond time, but it is not.

It feels more right that anything he can remember since before his fall from the Bifrost, more real and yet more magical than his recent journeys into mystery.

Then it’s over all too soon and she draws away.

His arms are suddenly much too empty and he almost reaches for her again, craving her touch.

For a fleeting heartbeat, his soul had no longer felt torn apart to the point of forgetting he’d ever been whole.

The chaos had crumbled in on itself like a bad dream.

He is surprised he still knows what peace of mind feels like after what has happened to him since arriving at the TVA.

But now she looks at him with alarm in those beautiful brown eyes and he is crudely reminded that he is an intruder in her reality.

What she thought she saw, she clearly no longer recognizes.

It takes him all of three stupidly long seconds to remember that she said his name. That he’s wearing his own face and not a disguise.

That she knew him immediately, just like the old man.

She kissed him.

Too many impossible possibilities and the thunderous sound of his own heartbeat (surely she can hear it too) blur his vision.

He’s only vaguely aware that he is stepping towards her, trying to say something without the faintest idea of what’s going to come out of his mouth.

If it’ll even be words.

Her eyes dart over his clothes, his face.

“Loki, what - Why are you dressed like that? Have you been gone? Is that … blood?”

She retreats further, fear building.

“Jane, I-“

Her name rolls of his tongue with a sweet-tasting intimacy like he has said it a thousand times before.

But he doesn’t get to dwell on this, nor gather his thoughts to say anything else before something abruptly lifts him off the ground and hurls his body across the road.

“How dare you touch her, beast?!”

Immediately as his back connects with the rough gravel, someone is there, a knee pushing him down, fingers closing around his throat. A sharp object presses against his chin.

There is a dangerous, unhinged growl as his attacker breathes hotly in his ear. “You will die for this!”

The man is strong and somehow blocking Loki’s own magic, but he still manages to twist his head -

And looks right up into his own eyes, nearly black with rage.

//

“Speak! What are you??”

The man with a face exactly like his presses the tip of his blade closer to Loki’s left eye. “You will show yourself right now or -“

Gathering his magic tightly around him (focus!), Loki pushes back, hard.

With a surge of energy, their bodies are separated, and the other version of him lands heavily in the middle of the road some meters away.

Both of them are on their feet with the fluid movements of two panthers ready to pounce, the other now in full armor.

He has to leave, right now, even if means leaving her which is a catastrophe that might either kill him or make him try to kill his other self if he stays here another minute.

This timeline is clearly not his own.

It cannot be.

Arm outstretched to ward off his furious twin with a shield of magic, he tries to work the tempad with one hand.

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

A booming voice above their heads.

“You know, when Jane pressed the panic button just now, I thought we had an actual emergency. Not that you were preparing a little dinner show for us, Reindeer Games. Gotta be honest though, this doppelgänger stunt was never my favorite -“

“Stark!”

The variant - for he must be a variant - angrily interrupts the man in the metal suit hovering in the air.

Of course, Loki remembers him all too clearly.

What has it been, less than a week since he threw him, or a version of him, out the window of the glass tower?

“This is not my creation”, the variant hisses with venom dripping from every word. “I caught him assaulting Jane. Kissing her”.

“What?!”

Stark focuses all his attention (and one of his iron fists) on Loki. A metallic humming rises steadily from inside the suit.

“A man on a suicide mission then. Boy, did you smooch the wrong wizard’s baby-mama. He may look all domesticated and cute now, but I assure you he’s still all kinds of crazy. In fact-”.

“Hey!”

“What?”

“I know it’s asking a lot, of you in particular, Stark, but could we possibly save the personal insults till we have dealt with this right here?”

Wait, just wait.

Damn it, he can’t tap in the destination on the tempad without looking at it.

Green smoke is swirling around the hands of his other self. He knows what’s coming.

“This is your last warning, devil! I will not have you hiding behind my face as I -“

“This is my face! I’m you, you fool! Bigger things are at large here and-“ Loki falters, his silver tongue failing once more with rising predictability within what seems a disconcertingly short period of time.

Although he honestly can’t tell anymore.

“Please, take a minute -“

He can’t help but shout, sounding hopelessly desperate.

In another life, he might have felt humiliated, but letting pride dictate his emotions is no longer a luxury he can afford to indulge.

Still, the silence that follows his outburst is not nearly as long as he needs it to be.

The variant stares blankly at him, mouth slightly ajar, but Stark recovers easily, his voice now icy.

“Yeah, dude, that one might have worked better if you’d put on a clean shirt. Time to fess up real quick or we’ll have to-“

Drawing what might become his last breath, Loki looks away and down at the tempad. He presses the button. No more time to double check.

“What the?!”

Both Stark and the variant visibly flinch as the door appears.

He quickly makes for it. “I - I’m sorry. Truly, I am”. He looks to their stunned faces before turning to his exit.

Out of the corner of his eye, he registers the variant move (he has to be a variant). His mouth twists in an ugly snarl and two familiar daggers are appearing by his sides.

Before the door snaps completely shut, Loki sees Jane run up to the man and grab his arm.

“Love, no, don’t!”

He sees the slight bump under her dress that he didn’t notice before.

And then the scene disappears and he’s gone.

Part III

[opinions-of-loki]

Loki - Episode One, Summary bullet points in form of an unnecessarily detailed opinion

- What I found sort of funny was Loki, who immediately hit the dessert and immediately hurried to the next higher stone, as if this were the pedestal that was his equal, only to be able to explain / present himself to the Mongolian inhabitants, only that they did not understand him and asked again who he is. It kinda gave me Hela vibes. Black haired Odin children have a tough time getting heard.

ALSO! THE SASS! Yet staying polite despite him being confused of what is going to happen to him - Trying to be all intimidating, but nobody takes him serious, as always! You can’t scare the time space cops my boy :/ Finding out how the company works and being all confused was honestly a very sweet and funny moment

- What’s up with the soundtracks??? Someone give this dude a raise who composed these Blade Runner-que music for the TVA followed with those cool bagpipes traditionally used for Scandinavian folk music? FUCK YES! Also the end credits music, it’s just excellent!

- Loki questioning if he’s a robot or not! I mean, he was told to believe he was an Aesir but in the end wasn’t. So who knew if Odin adopted a robot son? Better check on this one - I kinda got cute vibes from Mobius and Renslayer, they seem to perhaps have a closer connection towards another, especially after he greeted her with a formal Hi and talking to her on a somehow personal level - Mobius at first seemed like a very kind man and being patient with Loki, even supportive, but he is an experienced cop and knows how to handle complicated people, especially Loki variants. Mobius gives off a vibe of an older Blade Runner who takes his job very serious. But in the middle I kind of started to hate him a little

- The story of why Loki is an American crime legend D.B. Cooper just because he lost a bet to Thor when they were younger! Hilarious! Most of the most legendary pranks ever! I would have been more happy about the details of why Thor demanded this, or if it went like ” Loki! Cause some chaos on Midgard. Humans are easy to impress.” ” Say no more, Brother!” - Though Mobius seemed like the only person ever who had the ability to call out Loki to his actions: That he isn’t a God of mischief, because he confronted Loki about if killing innocent people is part of his fun, if it brings enjoyment to him to torture people who had nothing to do about Loki’s past. Loki denying that it’s not true, Mobius harshly confronts him about his earlier maniac like expression when removing someone’s eyeballs, if this is still harmless mischief-making. - BUT! Where is it mentioned he was controlled by the mind stone and the thriving fear of Thanos to get killed??? Loki was under pressure, to get killed by the Mad Titan, and he wasn’t thinking rationally when he invaded New York? For someone who studied Loki’s life so well, Mobius sucks to get a point to this one, or it will be mentioned in the future, I better hope so - Loki doesn’t trust easily, because “Trust is for children and dogs.” Gave me Natasha vibes. Because she and him were sharing a quite similar conversation a few hours earlier.

- SEEING FRIGGA’S DEATH! Loki giving great speeches about wanting to free everyone, being a ruler of the Nine Realms to hide away what he truly desired and that nobody would understand his thoughts and emotions, but seeing 2012 Loki seeing that HE gave the coordinates to the Dark Elves, unknowing Frigga would be on this very wing, you can see how hurt he was and panicked! He completely lost all trails of thoughts, asking where she is, if the TVA also kept her, if she is okay! He wanted to save her so badly, he doesn’t want to become the version who will kill her once again. - Mobius saying that there is nothing he can change and that Frigga HAS to die to get back in the flow of time, OUCH! - I get more TTDW vibes when everything that has been explained to Loki, that he will only bring death and chaos no matter what he does, that not only Frigga is destined to die, but Loki is about to die at some point, it made me think of Odin’s words:

Mobius said the same things, Loki’s destiny is to bring death or to ultimately die himself, no matter if he goes the bad or good path. It left me with weird vibes about Mobius being like Odin, just less of an abusive father mentor thing. He was made to cause pain, death and suffering. It hurt. Knowing those weren’t Loki’s goals, he came to the realization that Mobius is right, but doesn’t want to admit it, or at least denies it, but agreed in the end in a very subtle way - MOBIUS AND LOKI FIGHTING!! ” Do you enjoy killing?” “I will kill you!” “Like you did to your mother?” MOBIUS! FUCK YOU! At this point, he lost any sympathy from me towards him. He was guilt-tripping Loki, perhaps even gaslighting him. But this is also part of his job. He isn’t supposed to be Loki’s friend, he is a cop after all. Loki is an emotional and vulnerable being, so hitting him at the worst spot to get out more of him probably wasn’t the kindest thing to do, but probably the most effective for Mobius. Loki likes to pressure other people, but doesn’t like to be the pressured one. - Loki’s purpose is to bring those together he ultimately tried to remove according to Mobius, Loki brought together a team of legendary superheroes together that barely knew each other, and they grew strong together thanks to Loki’s wrongdoings. It somehow hurt a lot, but in the end, Mobius was speaking the harsh truth -  "I will gut you out like a fish!” “What's a fish?!” BLESS CASEY!

- Endless Infinity Stones! I am in love with this idea! I don’t know why I saw people getting confused by it because even though the Stones are what hold the universe together, the TVA doesn’t live in that very universe, they are beyond that very space and time we don’t know and can’t grasp, they visit timelines after timelines, so of course it happens they find stones and keep them, either knowing or not knowing what they are, or they simply don’t care, because they have no purpose in the TVA. Perhaps these stones are variants too and don’t belong to a certain timeline and needed to be removed, such as Loki’s Tesseract

- What got me the most, and we all know what I mean, Loki crying privately when he once again viewed the life of his alternative self, viewing the loss of his family, the loss of his own life. I don’t really know if he mourned over Odin too, but in this series, Odin never threatened to kill or imprison Loki which perhaps didn’t cause any damage towards his anger. Though he was aware that Odin took the other Loki in a cell, but it was a destiny he could avoid now that he knew how things will turn out when he returns to Asgard. He will never get arrested, Frigga probably wouldn’t die because of him, though I get a feeling the Dark Elves will come nevertheless, but this time, it shall be Thor’s problem not to screw it up. Though it was a relief to see him smile soon after when he realized Thor was the only one believing in him, even though their relationships always has been kinda weird, as Loki always was jealous of him being everyone’s first choice, but in the end, Thor was alive, everything that was left, and Thor didn’t hate him - End of File - I don’t know why, but reading this, Loki himself reading this, the very end of his life, it made me shiver. He saw his memories of what could be, what MUST happen to him, and that there are more happy memories. But in the end, there are no memories anymore - end of file. That’s it. That was his life. - I can’t imagine how many thoughts must have been go through his head to see Thanos again, Loki’s try to kill him, just to see his neck and wind pipe getting cracked. He currently recovers from the effects of a full year of torture, both mentally and physically, just the same he would treat his ‘Children’. I can imagine Thanos promised him the world, something small to rule over to expand over more realms. Thanos triggered Loki’s fear and anger, who had to deal with the information he never belonged to Asgard in the first place. Whenever Loki would try to flee or play games with Thanos, I can imagine Loki got punished for it, he never even spoke sassy with Thanos during Infinity War.  Loki is terrified of him for good reasons. I imagine this young man, feared, terrified, trapped on a rock with daily mental manipulation and pain. Loki became obedient and would have done anything for Thanos, whatever he ordered, including an exchange of power. Even if Thanos never fully was on his side and used Loki as a puppet with power and sorcery, being useful, I get a feeling Loki clung to his words and promises to rule over Earth as a savior and liberator, which completely went wrong - His laughter following after could have many reasons, relief, stress or disbelief. He was still crying between those laughs, which could be taken as desperation about no matter what he does, his actions will lead to harsh consequences. Disbelief of what he just saw, as if it felt so unreal to even believe what he had just witnessed, that it was all real, a destiny that was meant to him. But what else did Loki do during serious situations? He avoids them, he doesn’t want to acknowledge problems and shoving them away with a sassy comment or a smile to cope with it - which could mean this laughter could be part of his coping mechanism

- Him opening up, addressing why Loki hurts people, was honestly the best scene to me. He spoke about his inferior complex, his fear of not being strong enough to survive, building up a facade, a fake personality to survive also with the help of his magic. He thought he can be superior to anyone if he could scare everyone, gaining respect and love in form of war and destruction, as he perhaps thought of Odin being a former warlord, he would prefer a son who is able to conquer, being merciless. He doesn’t want to get hurt, he doesn’t trust anyone easily, that’s why he has to hurt people, to avoid of getting hurt or betrayed in the end. He became a double-edged sword I’m open for opinions and private chatting if you guys want to add something ! :DD

[twh-news]

‘Loki’s Tom Hiddleston Teases Marvel Series Finale, What It All Means & Is There More Of The God Of Mischief To Come?

By Dominic Patten | Deadline

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details of the first five episodes of Disney+’s Loki, & maybe the finale. Maybe.

EXCLUSIVE: “I have learned, at this point, having said goodbye to the character more than twice, two and a half times maybe, to make no assumptions,” says Loki’s Tom Hiddleston as the hours tick away to the finale of the Disney+ series drops early on Wednesday morning. “We’ll see where the ride goes now,” the Marvel alum adds. As always with almost any project from the Kevin Feige run studio, that ride could continue, at least in some form or another. Certainly, the June 9 ‘Glorious Purpose’ premiere of the Michael Waldron penned and Kate Herron directed Loki proved to be the Disney+ and the MCU’s biggest small screen success so far. Also with any Marvel project, past Emmy winner Hiddleston was elusive on what could be coming next, be it in the Loki finale, another season or another appearance in the movies as the MCU shifts into its next phrase.

One thing is clear, after a decade playing the God of Mischief, Hiddleston still has a lot of Loki on the brain, in the best way.

Leading towards the finale, I chatted with a UK-based Hiddleston about returning to play Loki and the search for who or what controls the seemingly all knowing, all powerful Time Variance Authority. The Night Manager star also spoke about filming during the coronavirus pandemic, working with Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wunmi Mosaku, Richard E. Grant, and Sophia Di Martino, who portrays variant and soulmate Sylvie, and his upcoming AppleTV+ series The Essex Serpent with Claire Danes.

DEADLINE: There’s a great line in this season’s penultimate episode where your Loki and Sylvie are stunned at watch Richard E. Grant’s Classic Loki recreate Asgard to distract Alioth and you say “I think we’re stronger than we realize.” There seems to be a great resonance in the line that there’s a whole lot of Loki coming in the finale and probably more …

HIDDLESTON: I suppose it resonates with the theme that we all wanted to highlight about purpose and about meaning. Loki’s someone who’s probably been deluded by the idea that he’s burdened with glorious purpose, and that perhaps that purpose has been revealed to be fraudulent or meaningless, and maybe his self-image or the role that he has condemned himself to play is redundant.

His experiences through this story have shown him that there are actually more opportunities available to him, and you know, it speaks to this idea, like, can we change? Can we evolve, and in that evolution, is there room to grow? You know, so, I think the stronger than we realize I think is Loki finally understanding that, really, by caring for other people, that maybe there’s power in that, and I found that very touching, and the whole thing is an extraordinary dream.

DEADLINE: Speaking of an extraordinary dream, you have been playing Loki for a decade now, since the first Thor movie, We know you are going to do some voice work in the animated What If…? series, but how has it been having this series directly centering on him, in all his variants, so to speak?

HIDDLESTON: You know Dominic, I have enjoyed it so much, because I felt it was a gift and a privilege to be invited to come and sit at the table and think about what the show might be. Also, I suppose so many of the things that I’ve discovered about Loki as a character in the comics and a character in the Norse myths, in the canon, aspects that I’ve always thought were interesting, and understandably, there hasn’t been time or space in the movies to explore them.

DEADLINE: In terms of who he is?

HIDDLESTON: Those aspects of him have been externalized and embedded into this new story about identity itself and about integrating the disparate fragment of the many selves that he is or perhaps the many selves that we are. You know, we contain multitudes. Loki certainly contains multitudes. We have met many of those multitudes, including Alligator Loki (laughs).

DEADLINE: Sounds like you’re not done with those multitudes yet. From your POV, from conversations with Kevin (Feige) is there more that you see for the character as the MCU heads into its next stages?

HIDDLESTON: Well, I certainly don’t have Kevin’s brain or encyclopedic knowledge or capacity for invention. I’ve been on the ride for a while, and it’s been the most extraordinary journey, and to have lived through different iterations, different phases of the MCU, and I’m so grateful that I’m still here, and it’s been amazing to watch. I feel that the MCU is even more expansive, is even braver, more inclusive than it’s ever been.

DEADLINE: How so?

HIDDLESTON: I think the stories are getting really exciting. Not that they weren’t before, but I think they understand that the investment of the audience is very deep, and they don’t take it for granted for a second. So, yeah, I suppose the perspective I have on how Loki might affect the ongoing course of the MCU is this idea of the multiverse. People have already understood it when Miss Minutes is introducing Loki to the TVA. She talks about the multiverse and the war and that the sacred timeline, which is reality as we know it.

DEADLINE: It opens up the aperture certainly for new stories from all opportunities, doesn’t it?

HIDDLESTON: It raises questions of, well, maybe there are other parallel or alternate universes. Maybe there are other realities, and the possibilities there are endless. I feel that at the end of episode five, Loki and Sylvie are close to discovering the answers to the questions that they have of who is behind the TVA and that, somehow, this will provoke even more curiosity about…

DEADLINE: …Because in the Marvel Universe, answering one set of questions always leads to another set of questions, in many ways.

HIDDLESTON: Right. Yeah. Yeah, and I know that there are lots of, you know, interesting titles of movies that’ve been announced, which kind of hint at where it might be going.

DEADLINE: One of those that hasn’t been officially announced, but is rumored is a Season 2 for Loki, in gear under the temporary title of Architect on call sheets and the like …

HIDDLESTON: Well, yes, maybe, as I say, all the kind of multiple alternate realities are …it’s taken me 10 years to get a handle on this sort of mono timeline. The idea that this might be a multiverse is actually beyond my knowledge of physics

DEADLINE: Well, I doubt that, but let me ask, and no spoilers for the finale or further, but if Kevin, Marvel, Disney asked you to do more Loki, are you game?

HIDDLESTON: (laughs) I have learned, at this point, having said goodbye to the character more than twice, two and a half times maybe, to make no assumptions. So, I’m also aware that I’m only playing him because of the audience, really. So, it’s not up to me. But I do love playing him, and every time, I seem to find new, interesting things about him. So, yeah, I’m a temporary passenger on Loki’s journey, but we’ll see. We’ll see where the ride goes now.

DEADLINE: On the ride, as the finale looms, there’s a ton of fan speculation out there and so much that people have hooked on to from the show. So, as the man at the center of it, what was your favorite part of Loki the series?

HIDDLESTON: That there was meaning in the making of it.

That we crossed the finish line in the middle of a global pandemic and could create something, and more than ever, I felt really grateful for being able to do this job. I think in this there are some of those questions that we were all asking ourselves in the last 18 months in the show, you know, what do our lives mean?

I love taking Loki in new directions. I love the contributions of my fellow actors, of Owen Wilson and Sophia Di Martino and Richard E. Grant and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Wunmi Masaku, they all brought so much to the table, and I’ll always remember that. You know, I’ll always remember just being in Atlanta with all of them and making our bonkers show. Yeah.

DEADLINE: Making your bonkers show in Atlanta as the world, as America was still in the heat of the pandemic. What was that like, because you were in production and then everything stopped and then you came back, right?

HIDDLESTON: I mean, people have used this word a lot, but it really was unprecedented. I think we did six weeks of filming before the hiatus, and then the production was suspended for four or five months, and we came back. At first, it was unfamiliar because we had to make adjustments, but the thing I remember most of all, quite honestly, is the diligence and resilience and spirit of our cast and crew.

DEADLINE: Really?

HIDDLESTON: Yes, and it remains extremely special for me, this project, for that reason.

For me, it just demonstrated the character of these amazing people. It took a huge amount of planning and care and looking after each other. By that, I mean, being in the bubble. So, for many of us, the only other human beings we saw, really, were each other. So, we came to work, and we became a team, and the circumstances fostered this extraordinary team spirit, and so the memory of making it is really my incredible and deep respect and affection for my fellow filmmakers. People like Trish Stanard, our line producer. Richard Graves, our first AD. Kristina Peterson, our second AD. Autumn Durald, DP. Kevin Wright, our supervising producer, and so many others making sure everyone could stay safe and look after each other.

It’s really…I find it…it’s very moving, and it’s remarkable, and I just want to salute them all because I couldn’t have done any of it without them.

DEADLINE: In that vein, you have just come off filming The Essex Serpent with Claire Danes for AppleTV+. Very different from Loki, and yet also a tale of what is real and who we are. Is that what attracted you to it on some level?

HIDDLESTON: I read it and immediately connected to it. Read the screenplay, the adaptation. It’s based on a novel by Sarah Perry, which was published in 2016 and is set at the end of the 19th century. It’s an extraordinary story about uncertainty and about our deepest fears and how sometimes our fears can distort our imaginings and how our minds can lie to us. About how we have to guard against that, and Perry sets it in this extraordinary time with a beautiful leading character of Cora Seaborne, played by Claire. Anna Symon adopted it.

There’s this community on the east coast of England who believe that an ancient beast has been awakened by an earthquake and that it’s dislodged all these fossils. But perhaps, it has also dislodged this ancient underwater monster, which has been used to explain certain unusual phenomena. This was in the era when Darwin had just been published a few decades before and people are starting to think, this Charles Darwin, he’s onto something. Still, fear spreads very quickly, and it’s a very fascinating time where science and faith are in conflict.

DEADLINE: When you describe it like that it sounds very Loki indeed.

HIDDLESTON: Maybe the themes are very Loki. Maybe that’s where they join up, but I’m playing a 19th century vicar who is trying to contain his community. You feel very destabilized by all these rumors. So, yeah, to go from Loki to a vicar was definitely new, a new territory.

DEADLINE: Literally and figuratively?

HIDDLESTON: Well, it’s my first significant time in Essex, where we filmed, which I feel embarrassed about. I’ve been to Essex before, but I’ve never been to the very, very eastern, most eastern coast of Essex. It’s the Blackwater Estuary, which then feeds into the River Thames, and it’s a very ancient part of England. It’s so marshy, it’s where in Great Expectations, that’s where Pip meets Magwitch for the first time. It’s all foggy and muddy and marshy and quite atmospheric and a perfect place to set a story about of uncertainty and fear and gothic romance. Clio Barnard directed it, and working with her has been amazing.

DEADLINE: You know, it occurs to me that of all the main Marvel characters, Loki has been such a constant, yet so ethereal in so many ways too. Is it jarring for you to jump back into the role with all the uncertainty it brings?

HIDDLESTON: You know, I’ve always seen it as sort of an extraordinary and surprising constant in my life for a decade. But, I don’t take it for granted because I don’t often…you know, it may end. It has actually ended, and those endings have been conclusive. I really thought a couple of years ago, after I made Avengers: Infinity War, you know, we all know what happens in that scene, and I thought, that’s it.

I thought it’s over, and I was really proud to have been part of it. I was grateful for my time, but I thought that, my work would go off in a different direction. So, the idea that I got to come back and have another go was a complete delight, it truly was.