Here are some photos of Tom Hiddleston and Sophia Di Martino at a Disney event last night. There were Loki screenings held in both London and LA, which leads me to believe that executive-producer Tom did not want to actually fly into New York or LA to promote the Loki series. Every interview he’s done has been via video-link-up, so that’s interesting. I guess Marvel didn’t really need Tom to do a big international promotional tour, and more actors are feeling empowered to say no to studios because of the pandemic. In any case, Tom looked very handsome at the screening. Dude can wear the hell out of suit.
Meanwhile, it’s apparently big news that Loki is gender fluid? Like, Loki has always been a shape-shifter and we just call Loki “he” because his current preferred form presents as a man. Tom spoke to Out Magazine about this big reveal in the Loki series though:
“I’ve known about the breadth of Loki’s identity since I was first cast as the character 10 years ago,” Hiddleston told Out when asked about the recent confirmation of Loki’s fluid identity and whether or not he already knew that about the character from the comics. (Multiple versions of Thor’s mischievous brother have appeared in the pages of comic books over the years, including the canonically pansexual and genderfluid Lady Loki.) “Back then, I did a really deep dive into my own research and could see that not just in the comics, that’s always been there, but also in the history of the character across hundreds of thousands of years, there’s been a fluidity about Loki that I found really interesting and compelling and very much a part of the fabric of the character. It was really thrilling to get to touch on that this time around.”
And speaking about the slow-but-steady expansion of the MCU, and how much more diverse and inclusive it is set to become, especially with queer-inclusive Marvel titles like The Eternals on the horizon, he added:
“I think it’s really exciting. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is expanding and quite correctly, is so much more inclusive. I think it creates unbelievable possibility, a world of opportunity and storytelling which we haven’t seen yet. Thrilled to be part of it, and can’t wait to see where it goes.”
Yeah, again, it was something always known about the Loki character? And it’s nice that in the year (of our lord Beyonce) 2021 that a major studio is like “hey LGBTQIA people exist and might want to see themselves represented on-screen at some point.” But I still think Marvel screwed the pooch when it came to more substantive changes to embrace their female characters. I remember all of the sh-t about Black Widow and how Kevin Feige didn’t even want to sell Black Widow merchandise.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
