#Kevin Wright

[divorce-enjoyer]

Hello, Kevin Wright. Since you love playing with your audience, let’s play a game. In front of you there are three buttons. One releases the original draft for Loki season 2 episode 5, as well as the deleted footage. The second releases a drafted tweet on your twitter account simply saying, “Lokius is canon.” The third releases the heavy blade of the guillotine hung above your neck, and canonises lokius anyway. You have fifteen minutes. Choose wisely.

[kaleidoscope-vol2]

So you have Loki defending Mobius to S*lvie and have him retell the story of him giving Thor a hard time for going soft because he developed feelings for Jane, a human, and you're telling us he wasn't talking about Mobius, a human? You're going to try to gaslight us into thinking there was no romantic subtext whatsoever in that scene when you also had the building rumble every time Loki mentioned Mobius?

[northrnfool]

“It’s really nice to see people actually having healthy conversations about thoughts and feelings and that's a good thing to be putting out in the media to combat toxic masculinity."

Hey, you know what? I’ve got a good idea on how to combat toxic masculinity: represent queer romance in your shows and movie and stop pandering to the toxic masculine fanboys!

Fuck this guy, I know what I saw in this show. And a lot of people who didn’t see it in the first season certainly did by the end of the second season.

[pistachorlito]

Kevin Wright about Lokius being platonic or romantic: “we can't get into Loki's head and Loki as a character is bisexual and gender fluid, and I don't know”.

My brother in Christ YOU'RE THE PRODUCER you MUST KNOW because YOU'RE THE ONE PLAYING DOLLS WITH THE CHARACTER how in hell can you NOT KNOW what they're THINKING or FEELING it's like not knowing what MOTIVATES THEM.

[vogellges]

I honestly cannot yet comprehend that the Loki show has become the greatest queerbait since Supernatural.

I was ready for Lokius to never be acknowledged out loud, but not for the way both Wright’s interviews felt just like spit in my face.

AFTER ALL THOSE LOKIUS-CODED POSTS BY OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS, AFTER THE DAMN SPIRK REFERENCE, AFTER A WHOLE SEASON OF BUILDING UP ONE RELATIONSHIP AND BURYING ANOTHER

The level of its ridiculousness even makes it less painful in a way. I hate to be on the side of a ship which was erased for the sake of “fighting toxicity”, but sure as hell I wouldn't like to be on the side of a toxic ship which was praised for being “a real relationship” yet was never actually real.

[twh-news]

Those Loki Premiere Time Slips Were All Tom Hiddleston ‘Performing His Heart Out,’ EP Says

Sure, the “time slipping” phenomenon that Loki experienced during Thursday’s Season 2 premiere couldn’t have been achieved without some excellent visual effects.

But it also couldn’t have happened without series star Tom Hiddleston “performing his heart out” to make the time slips look believably exhausting, which he did to great success on Loki‘s set, exec producer Kevin Wright says.

“Those are going to be really fun behind-the-scenes [reveals] when that eventually comes out,” Wright divulges to TVLine. “It’s all Tom’s performance.”

[Possible spoilers ahead]

Loki‘s sophomore debut picked up where Season 1 ended, with Loki having been pushed through a time door to a different iteration of the Time Variance Authority — one where Agent Mobius and Hunter B-15 had no idea who Loki was. As we came to find during Thursday’s premiere, that version of the TVA wasn’t actually a different one, just a past version of the TVA that Loki had come to know. And as the episode unfolded, Loki began to time-slip more and more, which resulted in him getting abruptly and chaotically pulled back and forth to different places in his current timeline. (“It’s terrible. It looks like you’re being born, or dying, or both at the same time,” Mobius explained to Loki after witnessing the time slips up close.)

And though visual effects were responsible for Loki’s actual vanishing and reappearing, Wright tells us that Hiddleston completely committed to the full-body physicality of the time slips, even giving “eight to 10 different performances” for every time slip that occurred. And Episode 1 featured quite a few.

“There is a ton of raw material of him. If he’s being pulled in five different directions, he’s giving you those bespoke performances for each one of those,” Wright explains. “If you were on set, what you would see is Tom Hiddleston performing his heart out and acting those things. And so much of the pain that comes through is because it is baked into his performance.”

And unlike what you might see on other Marvel sets, Hiddleston’s time-slip performance included nary a harness or motion capture suit, Wright confirms.

“It’s his physicality,” the EP says, adding with a laugh, “He was pulling from many years of dance lessons.”

Elsewhere in the Season 2 premiere, Loki introduced us to way more time travel jargon than just “time slipping,” as Loki, Mobius and TVA tech guru Ouroboros (aka O.B., played by recent Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan) attempted to stop the time slips and get Loki permanently restored to just one part of the timeline. But even as the show hopped between the past and present, throwing out terms like “temporal aura extractor” along the way, Wright says it was crucial to him and the writers that Season 2’s timey-wimey logic stay understandable for viewers.

“We would often write for ourselves the really long, detailed version of how all this is working… and then often, as you get into it, it’s about slimming it down, condensing it. Because sometimes, the more detailed it is, the more confusing it becomes, or the more logic loopholes that you make for yourself,” he admits. “Oftentimes, it was about simplicity and visuals. You want it to be fun and intriguing, never confusing and like homework.”

[lokiondisneyplus]

Potential spoilers below the cut, but a super interesting article.

Some non-spoiler pull quotes:

Tom is my producing partner in a true sense. Before we had any writers or directors, it was Tom and I for months building this story out. We had a 30-page document that was like, This is what the show is: TVA, He Who Remains — even Victor Timely was in that first document years ago. And it’s just carried through. -- This is maybe — not maybe — this is the first Marvel series to never have any additional photography. The story that is on screen is the story we set out to make. -- We were casting, and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was playing in L.A. and in New York, but it hadn’t gone nationwide yet. I think it was going the very next week. We had gotten a call from our casting director who said, “Hey, I’m about to put together a list for OB — just initial thoughts. But before I do that, I really think you guys should meet Ke, and I think it should be Ke. I think you guys should meet with him quick, because probably by Monday, he’s going to have a lot of offers for different things.”

Of the eight live-action TV shows that Marvel Studios has produced for Disney+ to date, only one has concluded with the explicit promise of a second season: That would be “Loki,” the outrageously entertaining series about Tom Hiddleston’s god of mischief and his metaphysical exploits in the Time Variance Authority.

It turns out, those plans were already in the works before a second of “Loki” had ever streamed. As executive producer Kevin Wright explains to Variety, he and Hiddleston began talking about Season 2 of the show while in production on the third episode of Season 1.

“As we were shooting the ‘Lamentis’ episode, Tom and I started having lots of conversations about how this world could build out, how we dive deeper into it,” he says. “A large part of what we wanted to do was not trying to repeat ourselves, and not try to play the hits.” At the same time, he adds, they also wanted to make sure didn’t start Season 2 by “fast-forwarding through the drama” of the Season 1 finale. 

And so much happened in that finale. To recap: Loki and his variant-turned-potential-soulmate Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) arrive at the end of time, where they meet the creator of the TVA, He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) — the variant of the supervillain Kang who won a massive multiversal war. To prevent future Kangs from emerging, He Who Remains has used the TVA to maintain a single, sacred timeline — pruning away trillions of potential lives in the process. He gives Sylvie and Loki an impossible choice: Replace him as the head of the TVA, or kill him and bring forth an infinite number of Kangs.

Loki wants the first option; Sylvie wants the second. She wins, kills He Who Remains, and boots Loki back to an alternate version of the TVA, where previous compatriots Mobius (Owen Wilson) and Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) don’t remember ever meeting him.

Variety has screened the first four (of six) episodes of “Loki,” and without spoiling anything, Season 2 picks up pretty much exactly where the first season left off — before then charting its own storytelling path. The full cast has returned, including Gugu Mbatha-Raw as former TVA judge Ravonna Renslayer and Eugene Cordero as TVA functionary Casey. And Majors returns as well as He Who Remains, in addition to another Kang variant, a 19th century inventor named Victor Timely. They’re joined by new actors including Kate Dickie (“Game of Thrones”), Rafael Casal (“Blindspotting”) and recent Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan as TVA technician Ouroboros, aka “OB.”

Behind the scenes, there have been some changes from Season 1. The series’ original director Kate Herron and head writer Michael Waldron both stepped back to focus on other projects. In their places, “Moon Knight’s” Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have stepped in as lead directors, and Season 1 writer Eric Martin stepped up as head writer for Season 2.

To delve into the second season of “Loki,” Wright talked with Variety about casting Quan just before his performance in the multiverse spectacular “Everything Everywhere All at Once” changed the actor’s life forever; what the future of “Loki” the show and Loki the character might be following Season 2; and how Majors’ arrest in March for assault did (or did not) affect their plans for Season 2.

What were the discussions like about how to approach Season 2?

I think we had to just keep reminding ourselves that the TVA is a great world, let’s live in the drama of what we’re creating there. Which means not fast-forwarding through the drama that they just decided to stop pruning timelines, but also staying in the emotional turmoil that Loki and Sylvie are coming into this season with.

Also, there were certain things in Season 1 that felt like they were maybe a risk, and we didn’t know how the audience would respond. Once we realized that they embraced it, it felt like a lot of freedom to go further.

What did you feel was a risk?

In a very early draft of the script that Michael Waldron had written, that first Time Theater conversation between Mobius and Loki was maybe a couple of pages. And then a lot of other big Marvel-y action things happened afterwards, and we all went, “That’s not the interesting stuff. This Time Theater conversation is interesting. That’s what the show could be.” If we are really diving into the character-driven philosophy and introspection of self, that’s quite different than the last 10 years of Marvel movies. Would the audience follow us along on that? 

Tom Hiddleston famously held seminars on the character of Loki for Season 1. Did he do anything like that for Season 2?

No, because we tried to bring back as much crew as we could from Season 1. It was largely the same team. Obviously, we went from Atlanta to London [for production], but a lot of our department heads carried over, so there was an institutional knowledge that was built in. And Tom is my producing partner in a true sense. Before we had any writers or directors, it was Tom and I for months building this story out. We had a 30-page document that was like, This is what the show is: TVA, He Who Remains — even Victor Timely was in that first document years ago. And it’s just carried through.

So even as Kate Herron kind of handed the reins over at the end of Season 1, there is an institutional knowledge that comes with us being the glue between the seasons.

You mentioned He Who Remains and Victor Timely. You finished shooting Season 2 in 2022, but did Jonathan Majors’ arrest for assault in March resulted in any changes to the show? 

No. This is maybe — not maybe — this is the first Marvel series to never have any additional photography. The story that is on screen is the story we set out to make. We went out there with a very specific idea of what we wanted this to be, and we found a way to tell it in that production period. It’s very much what’s on screen on Disney+.

It’s clear that Majors plays an integral role this season, and you just alluded that Marvel usually does additional photography on all its titles. So was there any discussion about making changes to the show, given the uncertainty about what was happening with Majors?

No. And that mainly came from — I know as much as you do at the moment. It felt hasty to do anything without knowing how all of this plays out.

How early into the writing of Season 2 did you decide to cast Ke Huy Quan as OB?

We were in London, so I had at least some version of our scripts. The way the process works, they’re always being rewritten, but OB was in there, and his introduction scene was almost exactly as originally written. I would like to say it was in early spring, which was maybe just two months before we started shooting. We were casting, and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was playing in L.A. and in New York, but it hadn’t gone nationwide yet. I think it was going the very next week. We had gotten a call from our casting director who said, “Hey, I’m about to put together a list for OB — just initial thoughts. But before I do that, I really think you guys should meet Ke, and I think it should be Ke. I think you guys should meet with him quick, because probably by Monday, he’s going to have a lot of offers for different things.”

So that that Friday, myself, Justin and Aaron, two of our directors, had gotten on a Zoom with Ke. We pitched him the show and this character. We shared that introduction scene with him and maybe the full script. And then we called in the big guns that Monday; Kevin Feige got on the phone with him and said, “Ke, I know you read the script. I know you talked to the guys. We really think you should do this. I really want you to join the Marvel family.” And he had already made up his mind over the weekend. It was like, “I’m there. I’ve been a huge fan of this for a long time.”

In Season 1, the show explored several time periods and locations outside the TVA, but in the first four episodes of this season, you stick to just 1880s Chicago, 1970s London and 1980s in the Midwest. How did you come to that decision to focus more on the TVA and building out its history?

Because that felt like where so much of our core character conflict was going to come from. There was so much intersectionality of our characters and what they think of the TVA. Sylvie wants to burn it down because the apple is rotten, as she says. Loki sees it as potentially the only form of defense against whatever else is coming in a war with Kang. Mobius and B-15, they’ve dedicated their whole life to it. They’re not quite ready to give it up. Renslayer feels like she’s been keeping it together, and you get a real understanding of why she thinks she should be the one to get this thing back on track.

We want everybody to be in the gray area — they’re neither good nor bad. They might make bad choices or heroic choices, but they are trying to figure out who they are. The TVA felt like the place where we could maximize that storytelling and learn more about those characters through that. But also stay tuned, because we are going to more places [in Episodes 5 and 6].

Do you think the TVA could start to appear in other titles in the MCU?

I would love that. Look, I’ve been siloed in on “Loki” for almost five years now, by the time this show finishes, and with every filmmaker who has put their hands on the show, we’ve all had the same conversations: It feels like the TVA could really be this exciting connective tool for all of this storytelling. And we’ve only seen a fraction of it. We’re dealing very specifically with this one smaller department with Mobius and B-15 and Renslayer, but you look out at those vistas — this place is infinite. The exciting thing to us is there certainly are more stories to be told there. We’ve carved out our own little corner of the sandbox and built something cool. We’re hoping that other people want to come and play with it.

One of the things I’ve most enjoyed about “Loki” is how it’s telling its own story, but have you considered bringing more of the MCU into it?

Yes, in both seasons of writers’ rooms. It always felt wrong to go too far outside of the box of things that would directly contribute to Loki’s character arc in these two seasons. So that’s why we get [Jaimie Alexander as] Sif in there [in Season 1], we play with the variants in the void and various levels of Asgard-specific storytelling. But while we’ve had nearly 12 hours of storytelling, it never feels like we have enough time. Eventually, just handling the stories of our ensemble and not shortchanging them has always been priority number one.

Now, Season 1 and 2 were always built to be two chapters of the same book. The hope would be going forward, there are more books that we can tell these stories with. I certainly think that we could start doing that.

Would there be a Season 3 of “Loki”? Is the future of the show finite or more open-ended?

I think it’s open-ended. We certainly did not develop this season going, “We have to tee up Season 3” — in the way that we did with Season 1, where there was a very specific, “Hey, we’re coming back.” But I also think that where this show goes, there certainly can be many, many, many more stories told with Loki in the “Loki” world, and in other worlds connected to Loki, the character.

Do you think Loki would ever rejoin the larger world of the MCU? 

That’s the hope. I don’t want to — yeah. I think the the sun shining on Loki and Thor once again has always been the priority of the story we’re telling. But for that meeting to really be fulfilling, we have to get Loki to a certain place emotionally. I think that’s been the goal of these two seasons.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

[rosstrytobe]

[marv-el-spot]

THE ROMANCE IS CANON, BUT AT WHAT COST? (but it's canon?? but what at what cost? IT'S CANON!)

... Because for as much time as they spent apart in Season 2, in the eyes of the creative team, it was Loki and Sylvie's romance that drove the events of Season 2 to their bittersweet conclusion.

In an interview with Collider's Therese Lacson, executive producer Kevin Wright disagreed with the suggestion that their relationship was less important in the second season, saying:

"I would disagree with the assessment that we downplayed the relationship. They may not be stopping to kiss. Everything is driven because of the deep emotions that these two people have for one another. Everything that happens this season, I think, is still a ripple effect from Sylvie feeling deeply wounded and saying like, “why aren't we seeing this the same way?” This person is probably the first person in her life she ever opened up to. And Loki trying to get this person who he's seeing is making the same mistakes that he made in the MCU 10 years ago, going down these blind paths of vengeance and anger and all this, and he's trying to prevent this person from going down that path, because he deeply loves them and cares about them."

For Wright, the life-or-death, timeline-spanning consequences of Season 2 meant there was less time for the cute and cuddly moments, but that doesn't mean their relationship is any less romantic:

"You get that in Season 1 because they get stuck on a train together on Lamentis and you get to have that romantic moment, because two characters who at that moment can't stand each other, then have to spend an afternoon together, and an evening on the train. Or they get stuck in the void together. They just don't have those moments to get on the same page [in Season 2.]"

For as much as Wright sees the plot of Season 2 as stemming directly from how much Loki and Sylvie care about each other, that's cold comfort to fans who were hoping to see the two gods of mischief ride off into the sunset together. For Wright, though, this is what made their romance more realistic, as he told Lacson:

"I think it felt natural, and more realistic, and messy, and I think that was our thing is like real relationships are messy. And we wanted to do that and not force something that felt inauthentic just to like service fan dreams of seeing these two happy together. They both need a lot of personal work to get to a place where they could have a good relationship "

So Wright is basically saying that the romance is still there, but they didn't have a moment like in Lamentis or the void to talk about it. So it would unrealistic to bring it up... which I could totally understand IF the show should last 12 episodes and we would have actual time to drag their relationship and IF we didn't have...

the scene at the bar

the scene at the TVA automat

the scene outside McDonald's (twice)

the scene at the Citadel!

the scene were he stopped the time to talk to her!

so, what are you saying, my man??

Also fan service for making them kiss?? YOU made them kiss in first season, no one ask that! i mean, we wanted maybe, but that was unexpected and now making them kiss is fan survice. let me LOL harder!

And to the last quote says "they need a lot of personal work" to get to a good relationship. Again i would love to see that man, but when tho?? you're saying this like there's another season coming solely focused on their relationship??? because i would be so in! hahaha

(this was long so, thanks for reading!)

[sunflowerdigs]

Another day, another tonedeaf, pointless interview from Kevin "no-homo" Wright. In the words of Mobius, what a frustrating, shortsighted, silly little man.

[forevertrueblue]

Y'all this Loki discourse with the team saying different things every interview is all my fault I was one of the people complaining about Sylki during Season 1, and then decided I liked it, but wanted things to be open to interpretation enough that I could also headcanon Lokius during Season 2 (because that was never gonna be canon lbr). And then they did exactly that but it left some holes in the story because how did they NOT properly address the citadel/kiss? Like it affected the storytelling which should always come first. 😭 And like, was it because of the online bullying Sophia experienced? 😭 Personal show preferences aside, I don't like seeing that kind of thing be "rewarded."

Even if they wanted to just confirm in canon it was self love mistaken for romantic love or whatever, I would have been cool with that! But as is it's just this gaping hole of confusion that makes that aspect of the show awkward to think about.

But yeah on a personal level I do feel gaslit/tricked by this whole thing, because I "gave in" and did what they wanted me to do (enjoy Sylki) only for them to act like it never happened. Like i thought I'd have a richer understanding of the show and then Season 2 if I made an effort to understand that ship but now i'm just more confused and it's been almost three years and I still get stuck on this whenever I think about it. 😭

[kaleidoscope-vol2]

This is exactly why I compare Lokius to famous M/F couples on television. No one is imagining it or fetishizing M/M friendships. The context is there deliberately, the only difference is that it's same sex and they are still too homophobic to follow through and call it what it is.

[brsb4hls]

Ok, I'm ship neutral, so no ship hate, but I have never seen people absolutely denying reality and facts this hard and as a logic loving person I cannot stand this level of delusion.

Lokius shippers might as well argue the earth is flat in the main tags, that's what it feels like to scroll trough this weirdness.

So it's gonna be this one rant post, correctly tagged of course, to vent and then I'll have to blacklist this tag (which I have never done before with any tag, cause nothing was ever this bad) for my sanity.

Firstly:

Sylki is the canon relationship of the show.

Still, even if they've broken up.

So, if Loki is in love, it's with Sylvie.

That's that Isaac Bauman interview.

It is not in any way confirmation of lokius.

(Oh and the rainbow as a symbol of hope and new beginnings passes over everybodys face. Because Loki gives everyone hope. Rainbows did have symbolic meaning before the creation of the pride flag and by denying that, shippers sound like weird ass Karens claiming the fashion industry is pushing the gay agenda by printing rainbows on kids shirts.)

Now next interview, the Kevin Wright one:

He talks about Sylki as a romantic relationship and how much Loki still cares about her, even if there is no time to focus on that, and mentions that Loki was only able to do what he did 'because he cares about her, he cares about Mobius, more than anyone he's ever cared about.' Both of them!

So shippers actually took a Sylki interview to make it about Lokius.

The 'it's about who': there's an Eric Martin interview, where he explains that losing Sylvie was the last straw for Loki and then he started to control his slipping and it was about all of the people he cared about.

Which is logical, since he can slip if he focuses on a person. If it was about Mobius only, how would he end up in the citadel again.

And Loki does a full turn, then looks at the space where the audience would be, but not directly into the camera. Because it is about everyone in that room. Full turn.

Tom's interviews:

Tom calls both Mobius and Sylvie mirrors in an interview.

He uses 'passionate disagreement' for both of them.

He had to be informed about Lokius, because he wasn't aware of it, but is obvi ship neutral/ positive here, because he's a decent human being. That's still no canon confirmation.

Oh and the scrapped ep 5? There's no way it was simply 'romcom-like', as shippers love to imagine, that would have impressed nobody and Marvel already did that with WandaVision, so it would not have been a 'big conceptual swing.

It was most likely about Loki going back to the New York invasion, which is why B 15 is in 2012. Or slipping further back even.

That would not have fit the tone of the show and blewn the budget, so it got axed.

Now my inner virgo feels better.

I can't stand people spreading misinformation, that has actually nothing to do with shipping, but with my fact-loving self.

[satsumassoup]

kevin wright can actually go fuck himself

[cheesecake-crisis]

Rockapella promotional video, 1997.

[twh-news]

Loki is at his 'most emotionally raw' in season 2, producer says

"The TVA is in complete turmoil."

Loki season 2 is officially here - but it seems we're going to see a very different God of Mischief this time around.

The new season of the show picks up after a complete catastrophe, with Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) killing He Who Remains at the end of season 1 and shattering the sacred timeline.

Producer Kevin Wright exclusively told RadioTimes.com: "I think we wanted to pick up immediately where season 1 picked up… it’s a continuation in a lot of ways, and that was because so many of those themes in season 1 - the search for identity, your place, how you fit in, the choices you make - are, in real life, never resolved.

"You’re constantly trying to figure out who you are. I think it felt natural to pull those into a season 2, but now the stakes are so much higher.

"Everything’s in turmoil, Loki is probably as emotionally raw as he’s ever been at the start of the season, the TVA is in complete turmoil as well, they have no idea who they are and what their place in the universe is."

He added: "It just felt like we could carry over all of those ideas and just ratchet them up because of the dramatic stakes."

Wright went on to say of his conversations with Hiddleston about the character: "Early on in the process - we were still shooting season 1 - we were talking about what we would do.

"The idea of, have we ever seen the best version of Loki came about? That kind of started as this core idea and turned into, how do we challenge that? How do we put this guy in situations where it’s like, the ideas of who he is and who he wants to be will be challenged, and forced him to really show it."

The new season sees Hiddleston return as the God of Mischief alongside Di Martino as Sylvie, Owen Wilson as Mobius and Jonathan Majors as Victor Timely, after his first appearance as He Who Remains in season 1.

Season 2 also introduces Ke Huy Quan as new character OB.