All language subtitles for Marvel.Studios.Assembled.S01E03.The.Making.of.Loki.1080p.WEB.h264-KOGi

TOM HIDDLESTON: Thyme...

No, the other "Time."

Thank you.
Much better.

(CLEARS THROAT)

Time...

For some, time is a wheel.

An infinite repetition
of what came before

and what is yet to come.

Looping endlessly
over and over.

For others, time is an arrow.

Pressing faithfully forward.

We began Loki on February 10, 2020,

at eight o'clock in the morning

and wrapped production 299 days later.

Approximately 7,176 hours.

Or 430,560 minutes,

working and breathing
and dreaming with the show.

Take that number and whittle it down
with many clever edits,

and you get six episodes.

Totaling 280 minutes and 17 seconds
of programming.

Now, whittle the experience down
even further,

and you get this one-hour...

Give or take, documentary.

A comparatively brief time capsule.
*MARVEL STUDIOS ASSEMBLED*

A remembrance of things past.
Season 01 Episode 03

Given the constraints,
Aired on: July 21, 2021.

we shouldn't waste, a single second.
Episode Title: "The Making of Loki"

Let's go back
to the beginning.

At the end of the first day,
I cannot believe that I'm doing this.

I literally cannot believe it's happening.

Um, I first wore this costume
ten years ago.

- I can't believe I'm still wearing it.
- (PEOPLE CHUCKLING)

Um, and I'm so excited about this show.

Um, I'm so grateful to all of you
for everything you're gonna do on it.

So, um, thank you for day one of 849.

- And onward we march.
- (PEOPLE CLAPPING)

I remember going to see
the first Iron Man in 2008.

And I was actually in Sweden, working on
a project there with Kenneth Branagh.

And he went to see it the next weekend,

and we both thought,
"God, Iron Man was extraordinary."

And then he got the job
of directing Thor...

I kind of joked about, you know...

I think once we were on stage,

and I came in with an empty water cooler
and pretended it was the hammer of Thor.

He was able to invite me to audition

'cause he knew that it was going to be
a huge opportunity for so many people.

It's a long time
since I've seen you smile.

HIDDLESTON: I remember,
as clear as day, the first auditions.

I almost remember the scenes.
There was a scene between two brothers,

and they couldn't reveal
the character names.

One was called Michael,
the other was called Lucas.

I believe I learned both sets of lines.

So you're saying...

that our friends will stand with me
in defending our home,

but my own brother will not?

And then a month later, Chris Hemsworth
and I got the call on the same day.

Chris and I got together,
and the moment I met him, I thought...

"This is the beginning
of the most extraordinary journey.

"And I don't know where it's going to go,
but I really like this person.

"This could be something."

From that point on,
I just threw myself at it.

I threw my whole soul at it.

Tom is a fan favorite. People loved
what he's brought to the character Loki.

He's a character that has always
found a way to come back organically

in new, and interesting,
and exciting ways.

Your savior is here!

As we were looking for the kind of stories
we wanted to tell on Disney Plus,

Tom just seemed like a real no-brainer

because of the richness of that character
and the depth of that fan base.

Something happened after Avengers One.

That's when I realized that
Loki as a character

had taken on a life of its own
in the mind of the audience.

So that by the time
we got to Comic-Con in 2013,

Kevin Feige had this idea that
I should go out on stage in character.

And I said to him,
"That's insane and amazing.

"I'm in. Let's go."

It was a moment in time
that is unrepeatable.

I don't think I'll ever have a moment
like that ever again.

It was like stepping... off.

Somehow out of the environment,
into the world, as the character.

And hearing and feeling
the energy in that room

was something I will never forget.

HIDDLESTON: Say my name.

- CROWD: Loki!
- (LOUDLY) Say my name!

- CROWD: Loki!
- (YELLING) Say my name!

CROWD: Loki!

And I think after that,
it was, very generously,

that Kevin Feige, and Louis D'Esposito,
and Victoria Alonso at Marvel thought,

"Well, Loki's got to hang around
for a bit longer." (CHUCKLES)

I, Loki, Prince of Asgard,

Odinson, rightful king of Jotunheim,

God of Mischief...

HIDDLESTON: I remember meeting
Joe and Anthony Russo.

And they said, "Infinity War is in...

"It's a labyrinthine thing,
and everyone's involved.

"And we're trying to refine
what happens in it.

"There are some things
we're not sure of yet. However...

"we are sure that the opening of this film

"is Loki giving the Tesseract to Thanos."

You really are the worst brother.

"After which he is executed."

And I looked at Kevin, and I said...

"So, that's it?"

And he was like, "Yep."

No resurrections this time.

It's gonna be
an extraordinary moment because...

Immediately, you believe
in the power of Thanos.

BROUSSARD:
That sacrifice meant something.

And we didn't wanna undo that sacrifice,
or suggest that it never really happened,

or some other sort of way
that felt like it might cheapen

the real emotional weight
of that moment in that film.

We knew we wanted
to tell more stories with Tom.

On my way down
to coordinate search and rescue.

"On my way down
to coordinate search and rescue."

I mean, honestly,
how do you keep your food down...

Shut up.

BROUSSARD: As Endgame was coming together,
the idea that,

throughout the time travel misadventures
of the Avengers, something goes wrong...

No stairs!

(PEOPLE YELLING)

BROUSSARD: Tom grabs the Cube
and disappears.

It's a complication in that movie that
really sets our heroes on their back foot.

What's interesting is,
it's not dealt with.

We have no idea where that goes.

One of the things that Kevin Feige
and myself were talking about was,

"Could that be a jumping-off point
for a new way to tell a Loki story?"

HUNTER B-15: Variant identified.

I beg your pardon?

BROUSSARD: TV has always been
the medium of the anti-hero.

You think about the great anti-heroes
like Don Draper or Tony Soprano.

There's enough time to kind of understand
what some people might call

"the bad guy" in another movie
or another type of story.

So we really wanted to have
as much runway as possible

to explore kind of what makes Loki tick.

We did the math, and he's...

Loki's been on screen
for less than two hours

over the course of ten years,
and he's made this huge impact.

And suddenly now,
we have six hours to tell this story.

(BOTH GRUNTING)

(SIGHS) That's better.

WRIGHT: It's a serious show.
It's a dramatic show.

It's a thrilling show.
It's a really wacky show.

And it was just this amazing
team of writers, led by Michael Waldron,

just trying to crack

the world and the logic
of how this show works.

"The TVA manages all of time."
What does that mean?

WALDRON: You know, I think a lot
of people, what they expected was, like,

"This'll be Quantum Leap.

"This is gonna be Loki
riding with Paul Revere,

"influencing historical events."

And my pitch from the first time
I met with those guys is,

"Let's blow up
what people think the show is."

How'd we do?

BROUSSARD: When we were looking
for a director for this series,

we had a lot of interested parties,
a lot of great conversations.

Kate really rose above all of them
because of her take on the material.

I remember my agent
telling me, basically,

"This is just, like, a friendly
kind of meet-and-greet.

"Do not prepare a pitch."

I ignored that and I did, like,
a full-on pitch.

WRIGHT: She came in
with this shock-and-awe pitch

that was the most amazing pitch
that I had ever seen,

where it truly was the...
What the show has become.

And I remember leaving that meeting

feeling like this is a person
who understands the spirit

of what we would love to achieve with it.

And wasn't just going
to execute those ideas,

but that was going to push them
even further.

HERRON: All at the same time,
lift your weapons up towards these guys,

like, ready to fight.

I asked her, "What do you think, Kate,
that the show is about?"

And she said,
"I think it's about self-acceptance.

"You got a character who doesn't know
how to change and grow.

"And we have this amazing story
that's actually about

"coming to terms with who you are."

From that moment, I thought, "This woman
knows what she's doing. She's in."

It was such a human, such a deep insight,
so simply put.

(CHUCKLING) I'm just a bit
of a cheeseball, to be honest.

Like, I just...
I love that it's about self-love

and, like, getting past your demons.

And I think something I always
try and bring to everything I do is,

digging into the emotion
and the truth of that,

and sort of letting the characters
be ugly, in a way.

For me, it feels a bit more real.

Again, I think it's just, like, don't be
scared to tread on each other a bit.

- Okay, okay, nice. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
- 'Cause it's like...

- As long as it's okay that we overlap.
- MAN: Here we go. Picture up...

WRIGHT: She has so many real-life
experiences that she puts into the show.

She's worked in a lot of offices
that sound a lot like the TVA,

so she would understand the buttons
to push to drive Loki crazy.

Shh!

HIDDLESTON: The passage of time
may be constant,

but the sensation of time is not.

An hour on the beach,

basking in the briny glow
of utter freedom,

feels very different from an hour-long
session in a dentist's chair.

And yet, a minute is a minute is a minute.

We move forward one minute at a time,
one moment at a time...

Stop...

...whether we want to or not.

It.

- And for that...
- Stop it!

...we can thank our tireless friends
at the Time Variance Authority.

BROUSSARD: There's an organization that
goes back in the history of Marvel Comics

called the Time Variance Authority,
the TVA.

It's an organization that
I've long been fascinated with,

just as I've paged through comics
at Marvel

in the years that I've been there.

And I always knew that
they could have a very cool story to tell.

The notion of this bureaucracy

that basically controls
all of time and space.

- Come on.
- Let's go.

You're making a terrible mistake.

BROUSSARD: He's the trickster,
and he's this prince of Asgard,

this God of Mischief, who's had
this somewhat villainous role to play.

And we really just liked the idea
of plucking him,

quite literally out of his own time

and throwing him down in a place
where he doesn't know the rules.

You see him first in his Avengers costume.

And so, that's this, you know,

very elaborate
sort of fighting outfit, right?

Absolutely not.

This is fine Asgardian leather.

WADA: So we wanted to just do
a real stark contrast.

Just a very, like, open it up with a bang.

Now, hang on just a minute.

MAN: Two... one... Action!

(YELPS)

(GASPS)

HIDDLESTON: We put him
in a standard-issue TVA jumpsuit

and essentially, in that scene,

break him down
to his most vulnerable core.

Please, through the door.

Oh, right. So the floor can drop out
from under me as soon as I try to leave.

Nice try. I'm ready for it this time.

- That's not how this chamber works.
- Liar.

You kind of wanted to give
a little insight into the character

that wasn't just about the wall
of the superhero costume, right?

You wanted to feel like

you were penetrating some layers
into this character.

You have no idea what I'm capable of!

MOBIUS: I... I think I might.

Have an idea of what he's capable of.

I remember sitting down
with Kevin Wright, the producer,

and some of the writers,

and they were telling me the story
of the show. And they were like,

"So, there's this really interesting
character called Mobius and, um,

"he's kind of like
an analyst in the TVA.

"And he's a great intellect,
and he's a scholar.

"And he kind of understands Loki.

"And he's able to
show him parts of himself

"he's never understood before."

And I always thought, "God,
I wonder who's gonna play that part?"

- And here he is.
- Here he is.

- The one and only.
- (BOTH LAUGH)

Let me ask you this. How...

Thought you were leading up to, like,

"And there's only one person
in my mind..."

- There's only...
- "...who could play this."

There's only one person.

- Instead it was, "Who is it gonna be?"
- It was only ever...

"Here he is."

(BOTH LAUGHING)

OWEN WILSON: Well, when they first
spoke to me about Iron Man,

I kind of wanted to let Marvel
get established a little bit.

And so then when they talked to me
about Thor, and then about...

uh, Captain America, and even Hulk,

I was like,
"Well, you know, I don't know..."

So, um, it... I'm just kidding.

You know what's funny is, like,
even the name "Mobius," it's like...

I just like that name.

- It just is a cool...
- It's a great name. Yeah.

So when people say,
"What are you doing?"

And, you know, "What are you doing
in the Marvel Universe?"

"No, I'm not wearing a cape.
I'm not... I don't have any superpowers.

"Other than the name 'Mobius, '
which has a certain power to it."

WALDRON: In a story about anti-heroes,

the exciting thing about Mobius
was to play a guy

who was really just kind of
a down-the-middle, old-school hero.

Clock's always tickin'.

Which is better than the alternative.

WALDRON: He's the rascally detective.

And such a good foil for Tom.

How's training going?

- Complete natural.
- Yeah?

Learning about my jet ski there?

WILSON: It was great when I first
got down here to work in Atlanta

because Tom...
We sort of called them "The Loki Lectures"

that Tom would take us through
and work with me individually.

Just going over the lore
and everything that he felt was important,

and showing me clips and things.

So that was really important to me
for understanding.

And then also, I ended up just
sort of writing down

some of the stuff he said describing Loki.

And I think that even worked its way
sometimes into dialogue that I would say.

Glorious purpose.

HIDDLESTON: I remember Owen asking me
what I loved about playing Loki.

Like, never mind what was great
about the character,

what other people could see.

He was like,
"Tom, what do you love about it?

"What do you love about Loki?"

And I heard myself saying,

"He plays all the keys on the piano.

"So, he plays the light keys
and the major keys, all the...

"All the light, white notes up there.

"But he also plays the heavy keys
with the left hand.

"Those deep, profound chords

"which are full of sorrow, and grief,
and anger.

"And he's able to somehow make it...

"The music of Loki internally
has this breadth of the scale."

Um, and Owen said,
"That sounds about right."

Enough.

Back in your cage.

See, I can play the heavy keys, too.

WILSON: I had a nice conversation one day
where I was talking with Tom.

And he quoted something, and I said,
"Is that Shakespeare?"

And he said, "Yes, Hamlet."

And I was proud just that
I got the Shakespeare part.

And then I said,
"Have you played Hamlet?"

And he said, yes, he had.
That, in fact, Kenneth Branagh

directed him
in some performances of Hamlet.

And he described what that was like
and how rewarding it was,

and I was just listening.

And, um, when he finished, and this is,
I guess, that sort of English politeness,

uh, there was a slight sort of pause.

And then he said,
"Have you ever played Hamlet?"

Uh, and it's the first time, uh,
that, uh...

That someone I've worked with

has ever even thought to ask me
if that was a possibility.

Because I can't imagine
Ben Stiller ever having wondered,

"God, has Owen ever played Hamlet?"

If you had to do a Shakespeare play...

what would you choose?

Two Gentlemen of Verona, I think.

(BOTH LAUGHING)

Do you know it well?

Tom almost was able to keep
a straight face.

- By heart.
- That's when I felt like...

When he was asking the question,
"Have you played Hamlet?"

That's, like... He was just, like...

Just being so polite about it.

- But...
- You never know.

- You could've played it at school...
- Yeah.

...in a school production.

- Yeah. What one could I...
- You know most of it.

He knows most of Hamlet.
People don't know that.

- You know it by heart.
- No.

- That's not true.
- You know some of it.

- As You Like It?
- "Cease to persuade, loving Proteus.

"Home-keeping youth have ever homely wit."

That's the first line
from Two Gentlemen of Verona, I think.

Which, I don't know the play,

but in college,
I took a Shakespeare class.

D�ja vu. Yeah, time moves
a little differently here in the TVA.

I think something that me and Owen
spoke about at the very beginning was

he really wanted to, like,
get out of himself.

And I think a key thing for that
was the wig.

Obviously, we wanted to keep
the moustache for Mobius

'cause that's so key
to his character in the comics

and the artist that he's based on.

You gonna keep this?
Or is this gonna stay in your life?

Well, I've gotten a lot of compliments
on this moustache.

- It's very dashing, I think.
- "Dashing" is the word that

a lot of people have used.
So I might...

- I can't afford...
- "Dapper."

"Dapper." I don't think

- I can afford to shave this.
- "Smart." Yep.

- This might be from...
- "Fancy."

From here on out when you see ol' OCW,

you might... (LAUGHS)
see him with a mustache.

WILSON: I really like the whole look.

And maybe it's a little bit sort of
like that feeling as a kid

when you're kind of make believe.

Come on, gear up. There's been an attack.

Well, that's why I like this hat,
because this feels a little bit like a...

A gumshoe from kind of the '40s,

which I feel like
this "TVA" is a bit like.

WADA: I just wanted him to look completely
like off-the-rack detective.

Almost as if he, you know,
just found his clothing

through the lost and found at the TVA.

"Insubordinate, stubborn, unpredictable."

Sounds like someone else I know.

I was just thinking
it sounds like someone I know.

WALDRON: We always had the Time-Keepers
as kind of this big, omnipotent threat,

antagonistic force in the TVA.

But as we were writing the series,

we realized we probably need
a more on-the-ground threat.

And that really took the form
of Judge Renslayer.

You ridiculous bureaucrats
will not dictate how my story ends!

It's not your story, Mr. Laufeyson.
It never was.

HIDDLESTON: Judge Renslayer, played
with such poise, and authority, and power

by Gugu Mbatha-Raw,

is the TVA's Chief Justice.

RENSLAYER: Hey!

(WEAPONS CLICKING)

I loved the dimensions of Renslayer.

I felt like people who know the comics
know who she is,

but she's never been interpreted before,
you know.

So, there is a sense that
you are really getting to create her.

And I just love the depths that she has
and the layers that she has.

And I think that she's powerful.

She's well respected.
She's worked her way up.

There's our Variant.

I don't think I've ever played
such an authoritative character.

You know what would happen
if we didn't prune the Timeline?

- MOBIUS: What?
- Chaos. Death.

- Free will?
- (SCOFFS)

Free will?

Only one person gets free will.

The one in charge.

We are here in my office...

Uh, Ravonna Renslayer,
Judge Renslayer's office.

Uh, and this is...
This is an incredible set.

And obviously we can't fully see
right behind us,

but between the Time-Keepers right here,

um, there's an amazing view,
um, of the whole of the TVA.

And it's really, um...
It's really a powerful space.

I love it. And it's got that
mid-century warmth to it.

I really feel like
I've bonded with the space. (CHUCKLES)

WRIGHT: We all just knew
we wanted to build sets.

The TVA just lent itself to a tactile,
real, grounded feeling.

You wanted to see the rings of coffee
on papers and desks.

And like, to do that, you just...
You have to build the world.

For the record, this really does feel
like a killing-me kind of a room.

HERRON: You wanna have this kind of
Big-Brother-is-watching vibe

with the TVA, that the Time-Keepers
are always watching.

And it has this beautiful,
big statues of the Time-Keepers,

'cause they are gods, essentially.

But I love the idea of marrying that
with the Mad Men aesthetic,

because, you know, we think that
they're good guys, and it's stylish.

MOBIUS: Home sweet home.

I thought there was no magic here.

There isn't.

BROUSSARD: We talked a lot about
fun sci-fi bureaucracies,

things like Defending Your Life,
or Beetlejuice,

or Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

They've all been great touchstones
for this massive organization

that feels kind of stuck in the past,
in that it's very analog...

There's a lot of paper,
a lot of older machines.

But also do this amazing, huge job
of controlling all of time, basically.

Is this the greatest power
in the universe?

Autumn, our director of photography,
is doing an amazing job.

Painting with light
and making things feel very cinematic,

very moody, and very cool.

Mischievous scamp.

The world that the production
designers created

and kind of Kate's come up with
is very unique for Loki,

and it has a lot of texture.

And I like to kind of bring
that to the space

with lighting and lens choice.

And, you know, I want it to
not be too sharp and too pristine,

so it feels like it could
have been shot on 35.

And that's important to me,

and I think everyone
was kind of on board with that.

Swinging for the fences!

KASRA FARAHANI:
The TVA is radically different

than what we've seen so far in the MCU.

It's heavily kind of influenced
by mid-century Modernism and Brutalism,

with a strong dose
of Kafka-esque humor mixed into it

and bureaucratic kind of chaos.

- Wish I could say I was surprised.
- Yeah, I wish you hadn't interrupted us.

- Me? It's my fault?
- Look, he can't have gotten very far.

HUNTER B-15: Split up!

HIDDLESTON: Some of the architecture
and the design are circular.

I suppose it's the idea
of how we think of time.

Time does exist in circles.

Clocks and watches are circular.

We talk of the years and the seasons.

We speak of seasonal cycles,
and we think of time as a kind of...

it's something that rolls along.

MINUTEMAN: Take a ticket.

FARAHANI: In some ways,
that is one of our simplest sets.

And yet it's a lot of people's favorite,
and it's sort of the funniest.

The idea is that
it's like a very oppressive,

compressed but trash compactor box.

Standing in this room now,

the ceiling is incredibly low,
and there are all these lights.

It feels quite claustrophobic.
And you just wanna get out.

FARAHANI: The ceilings are 7'6".

Even in a pretty humble apartment,
you typically have 8-foot ceilings,

so there's six inches less headroom.

So it feels like
it's kind of crushing down on you.

And then, obviously,
as you know, the ceiling is covered

in this sea of illuminated
circles of white, reflected light.

And inside of each circle,

there is a bulb that has a chrome tip
at the bottom and shines light up.

And so, if you look at it, it looks
like a sea of eyeballs, essentially.

And, you know, there's all the stanchions
and the kind of nylon ropes

that are corralling them like cattle,

immediately stripping them
of any kind of free will.

MISS MINUTES: Thanks for visiting the TVA.

Don't hesitate
to let us know how we're doin'.

HERRON: We interestingly have a lot
of hierarchy across the whole story.

Like the TVA, in its design, for example,
you have Minutemen, Analysts, then Judges.

But that's reflected
in the design of the TVA.

We have these kind of
Shining Overlook-style corridors

that are endless and go on forever.

But we have the security level,
and the management office level,

and then the level where Renslayer is.

And I think that
that was really key as well,

was making it clear that the TVA,
even in the design and the architecture,

had this kind of feeling of hierarchy.

We really worked hard to develop
class systems in this show.

So we just created
all this different ranking.

So basically, the Hunters
have solid black uniforms.

All the Minutemen,
all the sort of enlisted, have,

what I call the harlequin pattern,

where everybody's, from side to side,
it's a contrasting panel,

and it switches around on each person.

So sometimes one panel
is lighter on the right side.

On the other person,
it's light on the left side.

On an another,
it's light on the front.

So that it played
with the concept of time and space.

If you see a Loki, prune it.

The bad Loki, preferably.

WADA: It is kind of meant to feel
that this organization

sort of strips you of your individuality.

And the only things
that I did do were scarring marks.

Like B-15 has the amount of kills
she's scratched in numbers on her helmet.

She's a badass.
She's proficient physically.

And, um, she's strong.
She's dedicated and loyal.

Your Loki jumped me.

I told you he wasn't to be trusted.

When we were casting,
Wunmi came in, and it was just like,

"This is it.
This is the character."

We talked a lot about religion and faith.

And when people have crisis of faith or

like an epiphany or an awakening
and everything changes.

I looked happy.

What now?

She brings this warmth to the character,
but then she is our most badass.

Honestly, she's like
an action hero, right?

It was such an exciting
moment to be, like,

bring this really awesome
woman to the MCU.

I really was excited about doing
the stunts and doing all of that stuff

'cause I've never really
done that stuff before.

A huge part of it
was just being comfortable

with a weapon like the Time Stick,

where you turn it on, and you snap it open
and twist it, and the light goes on.

It's orange when you want
to prune something.

CASEY: You almost hit me!

MOSAKU: And then we have
the TemPad, which,

it looks like a mobile phone,
a gold mobile phone.

And you can call up a Time Door.

So that's what we'd use

to get to the new branch
and back to the TVA.

LUKE MCDONALD: The technology that
they're using needs to feel like it's not,

it's not futuristic, but it's not archaic.

It needs to be this kind of
ethereal place in time.

Because the way
that it was written and described

in the script from the writers
was that it was a glassy time door,

it instantly kind of started
to all click into place.

Sir...

MCDONALD: And one of the things
that really inspired us

for the Time Doors was David Lynch's Dune,

when they're practice fighting,

and they have these
kind of shields over them.

And we did a camera test shoot,
and we shot an element.

And instantly I jumped into
literally lookdeving this element out.

And we lookdeved out probably
a good 150 different designs

before we landed on something
that everyone really liked.

Fancy technology.

Threatening interrogation tactics.

Seems you and I are in a loop of our own.

Yeah, the Time Theater's
where we really broke the back of this,

the early part of our shoot.

And there's such a huge and hugely
important scene that takes place in it.

Do you enjoy hurting people?

It's a simple question.

Do you enjoy killing?

LOKI: I'll kill you.

What, like you killed your mother?

He and Mobius in the Time Theater,

it's two people talking
for 30 pages about identity

and philosophy,
and life, and it's thrilling.

I can't believe you were D.B. Cooper.

I was young, and I lost a bet to Thor.

Obviously, when you're working
on a Marvel production,

there's a lot of secrecy, right?
So not everyone has a script.

And I remember filming
on the Time Theater,

Owen and Tom are looking at a stage,
but there's nothing on it.

So, the stage is paused
on the Avengers on stage.

And then Loki gets up.
He sets down the Time Disk.

Me and the editors
have kind of cut together, like,

"Okay, we think this is a good
moment to play, or this moment."

Let's go from the top of that clip,
just so we get the timing on it.

MAN: All right. Let's reset.
Let's shoot it.

HERRON: There were points
where the crew were like,

"Okay. This is two guys in a room,
and they're looking at a wall.

"And Kate and Tom seem
to have a groove for what's going on."

'Cause I'd say, "Now it's Dark World.
Or now it's Avengers."

So, I've gone back
to the same clip of Mum dying.

This is where the reaction
goes on my own now.

HERRON: What was really
beautiful about it was that,

filming that,
some of the crew were probably, like,

"Okay, this is very strange."

But they still threw
their heart and souls into it.

And I think it was a real unifying moment
for everyone.

And also, beyond that, just seeing
Owen and Tom's chemistry on screen.

It was incredible.

And, like, it kind of began
this chess match

that both those characters really play
across the whole show.

A fugitive Variant's
been killing our Minutemen.

And you need the God of Mischief
to help you stop him?

That's right.

Why me?

The Variant we're hunting is...

you.

I beg your pardon?

HIDDLESTON:
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

And Loki is, by far, his own worst enemy.

In the 11 years of playing him,
over six films,

spanning 13 hours and 50 minutes,

he has fought his brother and his father,

Frost Giants and Elves,
Avengers and Titans.

But I can say with complete certainty

that Loki's biggest battle
has always been within himself...

...until now.

If this show was about
Loki learning to love himself,

a key way to help him arc and learn
to overcome those things

is to have somebody that's gonna come in

and challenge those views
in the first place.

This isn't about you.

Right.

BROUSSARD: Sophia plays a character
in the comics

that was known as Sylvie Lushton.
She was an apprentice of Loki's

and sort of someone that
he groomed to be a great sorcerer.

Our version in the show is basically
another version of Loki himself.

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

- You trying to enchant me?
- No.

- It won't work.
- Why? Because you're a magician?

No, because my mind is too strong.

SOPHIA DI MARTINO: What really
intrigued me about the story was that

this was a female variant of Loki
who was a lot more in line

with The Enchantress character
that we know from the comics,

but also, in a sense, a complete
re-imagining of The Enchantress.

I thought there was something
interesting in that.

Like, taking these two kind of
identities of Loki

but doing something different.

- Keep it together.
- It's gonna be fine.

She's another version of him
in the unlimited universes (CHUCKLES)

Um, that are around.
And there are many versions of Loki.

So her nexus event

pulled her away
from her Loki life in Asgard,

and so she's been living
a parallel life the whole time.

And it hasn't been great for Sylvie.

(SCREAMING)

WADA: We still needed cues
to her being a Loki.

But she needed to feel armored in a more
lost-and-found sort of way as well.

Sort of as if she was picking up pieces
along the way in her hideout.

It's as if Sylvie needed to feel

as though she was trying to recede
into these worlds a little bit,

but also be badass, tough, and armored.

DI MARTINO: They've borrowed things
from Loki.

Sort of the gold shape around the neck,

and the leather, and the cape.

The green circles on...

On the arms are...
The green is for Loki, obviously.

And there's little bits of Enchantress
there as well.

We really wanted it to be super practical.

Something that you can fight in
and that Sylvie could be on the run in,

rather than high heels and a leotard.

(YELLS)

DI MARTINO: Such a gift of a character.

I get to just be this absolute badass
who's really angry,

and fight all of these guys.

HERRON: Something that was really fun

in looking at Sylvie
and her fighting style

and looking at these little
differences between her,

you know, being a female version of Loki,

what makes her different?

And it's the nature and nurture.

TRAINER: Bam. Push down.

HERRON: Loki grew up in a palace,
and he's very balletic, the way he fights.

It's very graceful and very beautiful.

Whereas Sylvie, she's had to be on the run
and live and grow up in an apocalypse.

So, I always think of her a bit
like a feral cat, the way she fights.

You almost expect her to bite someone.

You see her at some point
take off her horns

and put them in someone's face.

Whereas Loki,
it's very, like, big arm movements.

Loki has this matador style of fighting,

where everything is about a kind of
elegance and a kind of showmanship.

MAN: And fight!

(ALL GRUNTING)

HIDDLESTON: We're actually trying
to build on everything I've done,

but make it even more graceful, I suppose.
If I can.

It's another mechanism for story.
It's very cool.

- Hey! There it is.
- (LAUGHING)

Once you take away
all the action and spectacle,

our story is about identity

and someone finding their place
in the world.

- You're not a serious man.
- You're right. I'm a god.

You're a clown.

HERRON: In Episode Three, in Shuroo,

this is a really big moment
for Loki and Sylvie in their journey.

They're actually working as a team.

We have to get on that ark
and make sure it takes off.

How?

We go around.

HIDDLESTON: Loki and Sylvie
have to run through this town,

and the stakes are very high.

And the scene has to have an enormous
amount of momentum and propulsive energy.

And Kasra built a town.

He just built the town on the backlot.

WRIGHT: Shuroo was a set and a set piece

that from the early days,
we planted the flag and said,

"This is what it's going to be.

"And we want it to be big.
We want it to be practical.

"They need to be able
to run through this city.

"We have to build the city."

Shuroo, where we are now,

has some of the archetypical
visual elements of a frontier town,

but has some elements
that are completely different,

from what we've seen on Earth

and completely different
from any other alien worlds

that have been established
so far in the MCU.

The scenes are all at night,
and you gotta check it out at night.

There's a lot of black light paint,
so the finishes, as you see them now,

are quite different than
where they actually end up being.

There's a quality where the architecture
itself becomes light sources

because there's these elaborate,
painted patterns

that are interactive with light on them.

And so, it's almost, like,
floating, glowing patterns.

SYLVIE: Do we trust each other?

LOKI: We do and you can.

(PEOPLE CLAMORING)

SYLVIE: Good.

So, we walk up,
we walk through this tunnel

and into the city of Shuroo. Follow me.

Ta-da! (CHUCKLES)

Which is, I have to say,

the most amazing... One of the most
amazing sets I have ever been on.

I mean, it's been...
This has all been built on the backlot,

here in Atlanta at the studios.

Uh, it's all been lit and painted
so that it glows in the dark.

Uh, it didn't exist before.

And even on a Marvel project,

I've never been on a set this size,
I don't think.

FARAHANI: The scene here is being shot
as a oner.

And so what's required to do that

is essentially a set
that is 360 degrees photographable.

So, every surface has to be designed,
and built, and set decked.

Big part of it was not building
any more set than we need.

It's really doing a lot of planning
in the early phases.

Kate worked with previz
and storyboards quite a lot

to figure out exactly how much we needed.

So that was a huge part to making sure
the resources were utilized well.

Kate and I have probably been
working on this for about a year

when we first met,

and started our prep in Los Angeles
at Disney.

There are cuts in our sequence,

but we wanted the audience
to feel like it's one shot.

So, we have stitches that transition us
from one shot to the other.

But the way that we filmed them,
we hide them

so that they feel seamless,

so you feel like it's one shot
from start to finish.

I think it will be eight or nine
sort of stitches in the oner.

But essentially,
we come through this thing.

And behind me, you see...

In the show, you see
this enormous crowd of people.

And at the very, very end of this street,
up in the night sky,

is the docking point for this ark,

this ship that is potentially leaving.

And these meteors
are crashing into the buildings,

and the buildings are falling down,
and it's mayhem.

People are running and screaming,

and trying to get on the ark.

And there are guards
who are trying to stop them.

So, to have the two of us,
to have Loki and Sylvie,

myself and Sophia,
have to get through this,

just creates an extraordinary,
dynamic momentum.

And it's so exciting that at the moment
that Loki and Sylvie actually connect,

that it finishes at the end
of this extraordinary piece of action.

Do you think that what makes a Loki a Loki

is the fact that we're destined to lose?

LOKI: No.

We may lose.

Sometimes painfully.

But we don't die.

One of the writers in our writers' room,
Elissa Karasik,

she came in with a real strong POV

that it should run
at that love-story thing.

And it was something the whole
writers' room got behind from day one.

Not bad.

You know, it's so chaotic to fall in love
with a version of yourself,

but at the same time,
it's such a bad idea and so mischievous,

it's, like, of course
Loki would fall in love with himself.

But he's also a character that,

I think, needs to, you know,
get past his demons

and find the good within himself to be
able to go on that redemptive journey.

So at the heart of it,
it is this love story,

and you never fall in love
at the right time.

The nice thing about it is that

Crater Lake is where these two characters
really come together,

and they realize there's something deeper
going on here.

HIDDLESTON: You know, in life,
we all go through struggles,

but we can't do it alone.

And if we have people we can trust,

it lightens the load,
and it gladdens the heart.

And I think the relationship between
Loki and Sylvie is about that connection.

That they learn, each of them,
to care about the other.

What a incredible seismic narcissist.

You fell for yourself.

Her name was Sylvie.

Ah, Sylvie.

Lovely. How do you spell that?
Is that with an I-E or just an I?

Is she alive?

For now.

HIDDLESTON: People in love
often speak of time stopping

when they first catch
that jolting glance of their paramours,

as if our brain,
perhaps even the universe, is telling us,

"Your life is forever changed."

"Sear this moment into your memory."

So much is forgotten
and discarded every day.

A password, an acquaintance's name.

Our inability to control what stays
and what goes

is a constant reminder
of the fallibility of the human mind.

Objects in the rear view
are often much smaller than they appear,

and they get smaller and smaller each day.

But as we march forever onward,

we will inevitably arrive
at one of those defining moments

where clarity arrives,
followed quickly by more uncertainty.

What we do in this moment
can often define our lives

in ways we never dreamed of.

What is it?

(GASPS)

DI MARTINO:
Sylvie finally gets to the Time-Keepers.

And then she finds herself
in a fight with Renslayer.

That was a really fun scene.

It's like, "Oh, wow!
This woman can fight. Ah!"

"Sugar. Maybe I've met my match here."

This time I finish the job.

It's really the first time that
we get to see them both together.

They have such different styles, I think,

because Renslayer came up
from the military background as a Hunter,

and Sylvie really did
have this street-wise fighting style.

DI MARTINO: The stunt team and
the fight team are really careful as well

about making sure the fights
make sense with the story.

And we make sure that the...

The scenes work as scenes
without any fighting

and then, sort of add the fighting in.

MBATHA-RAW: I think it does make sense
to go back.

- Yeah.
- Even though it's less aggressive,

- but she's coming forward.
- Yeah.

- Also...
- MAN: Keep the counter step.

- It's a good counter step.
- Yeah.

In a musical, you sing

when you don't have the words to express
how you feel anymore.

When you get to that point,
you start singing.

With this, it's like, when you don't have
the words to express how you feel anymore,

we fight.

MBATHA-RAW: For Renslayer, it's kind of
a fascinating arc to go from

this very, very sort of straight
perception of the world that she has

to it sort of all crumbling
before her eyes.

SYLVIE: Did Judge Renslayer really
feel betrayed by her beloved TVA?

Why don't you come back out
and we can talk about it?

(WEAPON CLANGING)

HERRON: When I pitched The Void,
my thought was it's meant to be

this barren wasteland where the TVA
sends everyone, and it's rubbish.

It was so weird
'cause I was on set, obviously,

and we're in this countryside.
And it's gray, and it's miserable.

And I was like,
"Oh, my God. I've pitched England."

(LAUGHS)
But it really did remind me of it.

It was quite strange. Quite a lot of
our cast and crew are British.

We were like,
"Yeah, we feel like we're home."

What I really wanted to feel
in The Void was,

it's this place where it's like
an overgrown garden.

We have all these weird structures.
Like, we have a boat on land,

and you see all these kind of
strange things that have been deleted

that shouldn't exist in time.

We had a lot of fun with Easter eggs

and sprinkling in stuff
that shouldn't be there.

There's meant to be this kind of sadness

and this kind of lack of life
about the place.

HIDDLESTON: But there are some things
in The Void

which have learned to stay alive.

And they've managed
to make a life in The Void,

if that's even possible. (CHUCKLES)

And I can introduce you to them
if you like. (LAUGHS)

RICHARD E. GRANT: So when I got a call
to do it, I said, "Well, what is it?

"Is it to play an older version of Tom?"
That's what I assumed it was.

They put it much more delicately.

They said,
"No, you're playing Classic Loki."

So I said, "So it's in the green Lycra
bodysuit, with muscles."

They said, "No, you're not
gonna have the muscles."

So I'm very distraught that,

having had been born without any,
as you can see,

that I thought I would finally...

I would finally get to wear

a green Lycra suit with built-in muscles.

But that hasn't happened.
But I've got everything else.

The horns, and the cape,
and the, you know, the boots.

(LAUGHING)

When I knew there was
gonna be this character,

- there are, obviously, all these Lokis...
- Old.

No, no. It wasn't just old. We literally,

there's only one person we thought of.
And it was Richard.

If we... If you'd said, "No," I don't know
what we would have done, really.

- 'Cause it'd be...
- You would've gone to...

- No. No, no. It was...
- (LAUGHING)

In fact, even in the concept art
when we were drawing it,

it was drawn with Richard's face.
It was like a wish fulfilment.

- Here we are, livin' the dream.
- Good.

I'm livin' the dream. You may not be.

- I am in the dream.
- You're saying that

- 'cause the cameras are rolling.
- I'm living in the dream.

WADA: Well, thank God that
Loki has a sense of humor.

And thank God that
the MCU has a sense of humor

because it was just feeling like
you could go really

to all corners for inspiration.

In so many ways I kinda thought,
there's no acting required

because the costume does it.

I mean, it's so massive, and I'm 6'6".

But then the boots that I have

have, like, two inches on it, so I feel...

I'm probably 6'8" in it already.

And the shoulders are out here.

I betrayed you, and now, I'm king.

My army, my throne.

HERRON: Something from the comics
that I love about Loki is, like,

he has been all these different
personalities, you know.

In the early comics,
he was very villainous,

but then you have the very different
Kid Loki in the later comics.

He's been like a unicorn.
He's been President.

I feel like I'm having an identity crisis.

WRIGHT: It was fun. It was weird.

We were able to create
all of these bandit versions of Lokis.

WADA: They all got different nicknames.

They were, like, Glamshades Wolfie,
which was kinda based originally of, like,

sort of a tribal leader. Like a shaman.

And we had Poky Loki.

It was just another play
on In-Prison Loki. Bicycle Loki.

These are bicycle handlebars,

which I think is very creative,

and you could probably try to make,
to recreate at home, if you so choose.

It was endless.

Why the hell
is there an alligator in here?

WRIGHT: Alligator Loki is wholly invented
by Michael Waldron

in the first pitch
he ever came to us with.

WALDRON: I'll tell you, for every really
dumb idea like that that made it in,

there's a hundred even stupider ones
that these guys had to pull me back from.

(GROWLING)

That's alligator for growling
and saying "liar" at the same time.

I remember sending a note
to the VFX team from our team,

which was basically like,
"We want to have an alligator

"that's very handsome
with beautiful eyes."

And I was like, "What is this job?"
(LAUGHS)

Alligator Loki was a very unique character
because of the fact that

sometimes the physics of a real alligator
are not taken into consideration.

Things like picking him up for instance.

Well, picking up an alligator
is a very, very strange thing

because alligators' spines
only kind of bend a certain way.

So we were working with ILM on this.

They found a piece of reference

that was one of the best references
I've ever seen.

It's this alligator called Wally,

and he is a support alligator.

He's absolutely amazing.
So we used this reference

to make our alligator, based off
of this particular Wally alligator.

It can't just be an alligator.

It can't be something that's like,
"That's just an alligator."

We really wanted it to give
that kind of cheeky Loki grin

or that mischievous look to him.

So, we based our alligator off of
as much reality as we possibly could.

(SNARLING)

(SCREAMING)

HIDDLESTON: Inside The Void is
a living storm that consumes matter.

You can think of the biggest storm
you've ever seen.

Thunder, lightning, dark clouds.

And the storm is called Alioth.

(RUMBLING)

HERRON: I love monster movies.

And trying to tackle a monster

where we kind of give little tastes
and teases of this creature,

but we don't kind of show him off
completely until the big showdown.

'Cause I love Jaws,

and I think something really effective
about that film is that

you get peeks at the shark,
but you don't completely see it

until the big finale on the boat.

And I think, for us, we were really
inspired with Alioth by nature,

and nature can be terrifying.

MCDONALD: While they were
pitching the story,

I literally was like, "Hey, guys,
could you give me one second?"

And I jumped on Google.

And I'd seen a documentary
on volcanic eruptions,

and pyroclastic flows,
and just absolutely beautiful, uh,

thermal lightning
inside these pyroclastic flows.

So, I got the job,

and then the first thing that I said
as soon as I had boots on the ground was,

"We need to start
lookdeving this character."

We put together this absolutely
fantastic kind of package

that had a very, very short
animation of Alioth

in what I envisioned him to be.

Come and get me! Come on!

The main thing with Alioth is that
even Kid Loki describes, as he says,

"He's a shark,
and we're in his tank, basically."

I think that was the key thing
with Alioth, is that he's a predator,

and he's just there to eat.

And it's great 'cause the TVA are just
throwing him loads of T-bone steaks.

HIDDLESTON: "It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times."

It also happens to be the end of time.

In the final episode of Loki,

after jumping from New York
to the Gobi Desert

to the TVA to a Renaissance fair
to Pompeii to Roxxcart to...

You get the idea.

- Long, strange trip and all that jazz.
- LOKI: Ow!

HIDDLESTON:
After all the space-time shenanigans,

our heroes arrive at their destination.

The end of the road trip

where you get out of the car,
stretch your legs, and continue on,

barely pausing to reflect
on the journey behind you.

It's a refreshing change
to go into the final act of a story,

where Loki is neither
leading an alien horde into battle

nor knifing a loved one in the back.

Usually in Marvel,
the third act of the story

is obviously, like, a massive battle
and a huge, amazing spectacle.

And I feel like our Episode Five
of Alioth is sort of

almost like a traditional third act
of an MCU story.

Whereas I loved in Episode Six that
it was actually more within our show like,

"No, we're gonna sit down,
and we're gonna have a conversation

"about all these questions
we've put forward to you guys

"over the last six hours."

After a very long journey,
Sylvie and Loki are able to discover

that the TVA had an architect.

At the end of time, beyond The Void,
beyond Alioth, is a doorway,

and through the doorway is a Citadel.

The Citadel is essentially uninhabited
and abandoned.

But there is one solitary light on
in the window,

and that light is illuminated
by He Who Remains.

HERRON: I was really inspired
by the idea of this kind of manor house

like Sunset Boulevard or Grey Gardens.

These basically big, ornate houses,
but there's a loneliness to them.

Then something that
Kasra came up with that...

Which I thought was so inspired,
was that the Citadel's actually carved

from the rock of this asteroid,

which I think gives it
such a beautiful, unique look

with the gold veins running through
this black kind of rock.

I really wanted the Citadel
to feel like it had big scale,

because it only added to He Who Remains'
loneliness and isolation,

and, like, what lengths
he's gone for basically

to protect himself from himself.

WRIGHT: The Wizard of Oz
was a big touchstone.

It's somebody who is looming large
over the story

and is the driving force of the mystery
of finding the man behind the curtain.

And hopefully being surprised by

what you find when you finally
get a peek behind the curtain.

This is wild. (CHUCKLES)

WRIGHT: Once you see behind the curtain,

everything is changed.

And so, I think, for that role,
it's so exciting for an actor then,

like Jonathan to come in,

and live this character and get to do it.

Because, while they're only here
for maybe 30 minutes of this series,

it feels like they are just in the DNA
of the entire run of the show.

I'd try to explain what I'm capable of,

but we don't have the million years
it would take for you to understand.

Some cultural pop references were,
of course, The Wizard of Oz,

Sunset Boulevard, Citizen Kane,
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

The archetype of the wizard
and what happens to him

when he gets bored, you know?
And he becomes a trickster.

Guys, if I was gonna do
an exploding chair,

why wouldn't I just do an exploding floor?

And I think when we meet He Who Remains,

he's on the borderline
of those two things.

You don't really know where he's at.

And I think the ambiguity of that
is one of the wicked things about it.

You think I'm just here with you.

Whoo! (CHUCKLES)

I am everywhere.

MAJORS: He Who Remains has lived forever.

One of the great things
I got to experience

with our costume designer is that

every piece, we decided,
was from a different place.

The cape I had on
was from the Victorian era,

the shoes are from Genghis Khan,
the pants from Mongolia, et cetera.

You just mix and match it together,
and it informs the character.

Without the me, without the TVA...

everything burns.

Then what are you so afraid of?

Me.

Jonathan Majors came into this production
in our final week,

and has created something,

I think, that it will be talked about
for a long time.

- Yeah, we're dancin'.
- Very nice.

- We're dancin', just dancin'.
- Yeah.

WRIGHT: It's absolutely thrilling.
And you could feel the energy on set,

because I think the crew knew.

Like, we're watching the flowering
of the next phase of the Marvel Universe.

HIDDLESTON:
The Variant of He Who Remains,

the one he's been talking about,
the one that he's so afraid of...

I'll see you soon.

...is Kang.

Kang is bent on destruction.

And I'm so curious to see
what Jonathan does in the future.

MAJORS: I think with He Who Remains,
the objective for me

was to give me
the largest canvas possible.

And then from that, as Kang begins
to rear his head and do his deeds,

in so many ways, he has no choice
but to be in opposition

or to be different from He Who Remains.

That was the thing that grabbed me
and pulled me into the role.

The fact that Kang
lives in so many iterations.

As He Who Remains says,
"Reincarnation, baby."

You know you can't get to the end
until you've been changed by the journey.

This stuff, it needs to happen.

HIDDLESTON: The potential of a multiverse
is literally infinite.

We can already look
at our singular universe with awe.

One decision begets another and another.

We like to say

that the possibilities are endless.

But in a singular timeline,
that is simply not the case.

Each falling grain of sand in an hourglass

changes how every other grain will fall.

We're both masters of our own destiny
and victims of circumstance.

There's simply no knowing
how things will turn out,

until they happen.

As William Shakespeare wrote
in The Two Gentlemen of Verona,

"It ain't over till it's over."

Or maybe that was Lenny Kravitz.

Anyway, the future of Loki
is still unwritten,

as it is with us all.

I will be 40 years old
when Loki goes out on Disney Plus.

And I was 29 years old
when I was cast as Loki,

so it's been ten, going on for 11, years.

It has been one of the great,

if not the greatest,
surprise of my whole life, probably.

(LAUGHS) I mean, it just...
It's hard to sum up.

I was a young actor,

and I felt so lucky even to have
the chance to audition for Thor.

Today was the first day
that I wore this particular costume.

MAN: Under this...

My best friend.

- MAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Hello.

In all my fittings way back, you know,
four, five months ago,

I kept thinking, "When am I gonna
get the horns on?"

'Cause it's almost like
the last piece of the jigsaw

in kind of becoming the character.

And to wear this thing is,
it feels enormously powerful.

What happened to you on Earth
that turned you so soft?

HIDDLESTON: To be cast as Loki

and to have that extraordinary
opportunity to make that film,

even as a standalone experience,

was more than
I could ever have dreamed of.

As Loki, I had to play the villain
and then I had to play the anti-hero.

And this time around is the first chance

I've had to see if we can really
break the mold and change him.

Why aren't we seeing this the same way?

Because you can't trust...

and I can't be trusted.

I really want the fans to feel that energy

and feel excited and inspired
about where we go next.

You know, we're here
at the end of this shoot now.

I hope we've made something
that people feel is very special.

I'd love to do one more after this
where I don't cry.

(ALL LAUGHING)

I feel very grateful
that I'm part of a project

that I think has probably
changed the direction of the MCU.

What people don't know is that...

Is that Owen has basically
broken open the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

That's what they call it, the MCU.

What's that mean?

- The Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- Yeah.

So, the whole interweaving web
of all the movies.

They're all stitched together.
They all reference each other.

And Mobius has cracked it all open.

It's true.

(INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING)