LOKI
LOKI HERO
RUMOURS OF LOKI’S DEMISE HAVE BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED… AS THE TRICKSTER GOD LANDS HIS OWN DISNEY+ TV SHOW, THE BRAINS BEHIND HIS RETURN DISCUSS HIS NEW ADVENTURES IN TIME
WORDS: RICHARD EDWARDS
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ONCE UPON A TIME, long before Thanos started fingersnapping people out of existence, there was a widely held belief that the Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t as good at creating memorable villains as the Distinguished Competition at DC. There was, however, an exception –a born trickster with a habit of stealing every scene he was in…
From his first appearance in Thor in 2011, the god of thunder’s adoptive brother, Loki, quickly became one of the stand-out characters of the MCU. He was even brought back to play chief antagonist in Avengers Assemble.
“Like so many people, I’ve just loved Loki across the whole MCU,” says Kate Herron, the director of Disney+’s hotly anticipated Loki TV show. “I mean, I love villains – when they’re done right, they’re the most complex and interesting characters. We don’t necessarily have to agree with their actions, but we have to understand them, and I just think Loki is a complete masterclass in that. Loki’s someone you just can’t help but root for. What [actor] Tom Hiddleston has done has brought such empathy and wit to that character.”
In other words, if you were placing bets on the first representative of Marvel’s dark side to headline their own movie or TV show, Loki has always seemed the best villain to back.
LOKI AROUND YOU
Much like Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man or Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Hiddleston is now synonymous with the comic book character that made him a star. And, just as the actor kept an audience of thousands in San Diego Comic-Con’s Hall H hanging on his every word in a show-stopping in-character appearance in 2013 – using stagecraft, rather than Asgardian magic – he’s now on the cusp of captivating the world via a streaming service. Whether Loki’s a full-on villain, an antihero or “a bit of both” may be up for debate, but there’s no denying the Asgardian’s ability to capture hearts and minds.
“This character is beloved,” Herron adds. “He’s had an amazing decade across Marvel, and we obviously wanted to pay homage to that, but also take him somewhere new and different so that it’s worth going back in there. It’s so unusual that you get to work with an actor who’s been playing a character for over a decade.