Loki brought in an Oscar winner and it’s the key to making the MCU work

LokiMarvel Casting Director Sarah Halley Finn had already begun writing the season 2 scripts when she saw an early preview of It’s All Here, Everywhere at Once The year 2022. In March 2022 the movie had just been released and was about to dominate the cinema landscape in the coming months. She was certain they would have to buy Ke Huy Quan. Fast.

“We had a lot of our casting, but we were starting to fill those new roles,” Loki executive producer Kevin Wright says. “[Finn] said, You can add other names to the list, but I recommend meeting Ke. You can also check out be Ke, and you need to make an offer, like, this weekend, otherwise we will probably lose him because this movie’s about to blow up.”

Wright explains that the process moved quickly. He, along with some others, jumped on Zoom and flew to Quan’s house on Friday evening. They sent him pages of an early scene. Luckily for them, Quan was already a “giant Marvel fan” and was particularly fond of Loki The first season of the new year is upon us.

Really, it’s lucky for all of us — in just a single scene (in fact, the very one he got pages for) in episode 1 of Loki season 2, Quan not only proves again that he’s That’s goodIt also establishes how crazy and fun it is LokiIt is possible.

Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios

Mobius, played by Owen Wilson (also a star of the film), and Loki (Tom Hiddleston), are trying figure out how Loki can keep time slipping at the Time Variance Authority. It’s a situation that shouldn’t be possible. Ouroboros (Quan) is the guy in the research basement they go to see, who’s mostly taken aback that his old pal Mobius (who You will never forget this.Both him and his O.B. nickname. He has returned to him. O.B. watches Loki continue to slip through the time. Slowly — slowly — remembers that, oh, that’s right, he’s actually seen that guy before! Loki, and an older O.B. Now! It’s funny to think that he had the same problem with his time back then.

It’s the exact intersection of Marvel technobabble and banter that could easily fade into the background or make your eyes glaze over. But Quan keeps the whole thing afloat like he’s bopping a beach ball. While Mobius or Loki try to steer him in the right direction, Quan seems to enjoy each new revelation of his time-travel altered memories. And with each turn of the scene — from the comedic to the genuinely plot-relevant — Quan is game and able.

Quan is the hilarious backbone of this scene. LokiEnjoy some time travel humor. O.B. reacts the same way in the past and the present to Loki’s slipping, or remembers that actually he has that doohickey Here you areIt’s a special occasion. It’s exactly what Loki needs. While the first season had a lot of ground to cover — setting up this Loki variant, and the other Loki variant, Sylvie, and the whole concept of the TVA, just in time for setting up Kang as the next big bad — season 2 can take a beat to indulge in just how comical these time knots are, even when the stakes are high. It’s the first time Marvel gave a live action show a 2nd season. Loki Instead of laying the track for the new big thing, it is more fun to play with this premise.

While the TVA and its many players have their fun, no one gets to sit in the center of it like Quan does at that R&A desk. There’s a verve to his energy the show was missing, and a sense of whimsy, whether he’s hammering a thing or perfectly warning Loki (and, by proxy, the audience) of what happens should the mission fail. If the actor was less talented, a single scene could be skewed and cause TVA to fall apart. Luckily, we never have to worry about that timeline — or the one where you fall into a black hole and turn into spaghetti. O.B. sagely warns us: “The less you know, the better.”