Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson on Loki’s Surprising New Friendship with Mobius

Loki Laufeyson needs a friend.

While he’s had his brother Thor by his side since they were children (even though they were often on opposing sides for the majority of it), Loki’s never really had a real friend. He’s never had someone to bounce ideas off of, or make small talk with, or even believe in him. For the most part, Loki’s been down a very isolated, solo path, and it’s a direction he willingly chose. If you ask Loki who the most important person and/or thing to him is, well, it’s himself, Loki.

That’s why it’s surprising that by end of Episode 2 of Marvel Studios’ Loki, “The Variant,” he’s...made a friend?

For the first time ever, Loki Laufeyson has a friend and he’s found him in the most surprising of places: The Time Variance Authority. After Loki winds up within the halls of this mysterious location, he’s forced to get along with an agent there by the name of Mobius. And while it starts off as strictly a business partnership, the two slowly warm up to one another. Or as star Owen Wilson tells Marvel.com, “the courtship is bumpy.”

“The friendship between Mobius and Loki, if you can call it that, is well-earned in that they really sort of put each other through things that are grueling and upsetting,” Wilson continues. “They test each other's patience and faith. Through all that, there is sort of a mutual admiration that emerges.”

Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston, notes that Mobius is maybe the first person who hasn’t judged the trickster right off the bat.

“What's so interesting about Mobius is somehow, for the first time, he's able to sit with Loki, and confront him without judgment or without any kind of emotional investment that in any way makes Loki feel drawn into a kind of turbulence or conflict. It’s quite comforting for Loki that Mobius is there [when he arrives at the TVA].”

Both Hiddleston and Wilson also note that their characters challenge one another on-screen — another first for Loki. Adversaries have certainly opposed Loki in the past via feats of strength and power, but never intellectual merits. The second Mobius sits down across from Loki in the Time Theater at the TVA, all that changes.

“Mobius challenges him, but it's not the same challenge that he's used to,” Hiddleston explains. “It's not the challenge of Thor, or the challenge of Odin, or the challenge of anybody, or the Avengers. Mobius is able to see Loki, and maybe that feeling is reassuring in quite an unexpected way for Loki."

Hiddleston and Wilson also agree that there’s a reason this friendship has even started, and it all boils down to information. Loki has information about being a Loki, and Mobius has information about the TVA — and the other desperately wants to learn more about these things. As Mobius explains to the captured Loki, he’s been studying up on Loki in order to catch the rogue Loki Variant, so it is pretty convenient that Loki just happens to show up when he does.

Calling this situation and role reversal an “unfamiliar feeling” for the character, Hiddleston adds, “Mobius has all the information, and Loki has none of it. Loki's motivation is really curiosity and a desire to understand.”

“It's always disconcerting for someone to know a lot more about you than you do about them,” Wilson continues. “That's the situation Loki finds himself in. He's completely a fish out of water, and yet [Mobius] seem to know things about his life. That kind of puts you on your heels.”

Episode 2, “The Variant,” dives into this further as Mobius puts Loki to work tracking a Variant who’s jumping around through time hunting TVA agents. Curiously, the two actually do work well together, with Loki gaining Mobius’ trust not because he’s proven himself trustworthy yet, but simply because he loves to be right. He doesn’t want to be wrong and uses that hook to convince the agent he just might be on to something.

So off they go through a Time Door with a handful of Minutemen, relying solely on the theory Loki has now surmised. Though we’ve only seen these two together through two episodes, it’s obvious that a partnership has quickly bloomed. “Perhaps they both realize that they're going to need each other,” Hiddleston finishes. “The needing of each other is quite an unfamiliar feeling [for Loki].”

And considering the choices Loki makes at the end of Episode 2, we’re just going to have to see how this newfound relationship continues to unfold.

Marvel Studios' Loki is now streaming exclusively on Disney+. 

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