Now that the first season of Loki is in the books, the cat - or director Kate Herron - is letting some of its behind-the-scenes secrets out of the bag. Among those secrets is that Herron, who won't be back for Loki Season 2, always knew that Jonathan Majors could more than handle his role as the series' secret "big bad."
While the identity of the Time Keepers was kept very hush-hush during the course of the six-episode season, Majors' character was revealed in the season finale. Officially called "He Who Remains," it didn't take Loki fans long to puzzle out that eventually, this particular character will morph into a more well-known Marvel villain. Majors, who is best known as Atticus in HBO's Lovecraft Country, is already slated to play Kang the Conquerer in the next Ant-Man film. Herron recently confirmed that season 2 of Loki will feature a variant of He Who Remains who will indeed identify as Kang.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Herron talked about her excitement over getting to introduce Kang to the MCU. She added that it didn't take long to realize they had picked the absolute right actor to take on the role. Furthermore, she said it was no small decision to cast Majors, noting that she was aware she was going to get the honor of introducing his character to Marvel fans while setting up future appearances in projects outside Loki.
"It's got to be an actor with presence that immediately grabs you, because not every actor can do that," Herron said. The Loki director added that once they talked with Majors, she knew he was the right actor to do that. She added that she knew the character was in good hands when he was officially cast.
Herron also said that originally, she didn't know if she was going to get a say in who was cast as He Who Remains. Eventually, she was honored to be involved in the process and thrilled that Loki would be the vehicle to reveal the character and the actor.
At the same time, both Herron and Majors knew it was quite the secret to keep. For his part, Majors went so far as to seem to deny he was playing Kang in the Disney Plus show. Of course, it turns out that was just a misdirect from the actor to keep people guessing until the Season 1 finale of Loki could air. Fans of the series will have to wait and see just how much of a role the character has in Season 2.
Loki is now available on Disney Plus.
Source: Entertainment Weekly