RICHARD E. GRANT
Ripped from the panels of golden-age Jack Kirby comics, Richard E. Grant’s Classic Loki is powerful in enchantments, noble of tone, and frankly looks like Kermit The Frog wearing a pair of antlers. “When I got the costume, I went, ‘Where are the muscles?’” laughs Grant of his reaction to the lime-green onesie. “I think they had presumed I would have more muscles.” As for the horns, “They were a very tight fit, as the bishop said to the actress. And you had to bend down every time you walked through a door.”
Even so, Grant managed to charge his one-episode appearance as Classic Loki — or, as the actor refers to him, ‘Withered Old Outcast Loki’ — with emotion. After being trapped in the godforsaken wasteland known as the Void for a long, long time, the self-involved trickster is inspired by Loki’s arrival to die for the greater good. “He’s prepared to make that sacrifice, to give himself up to [giant smoke monster] Alioth,” Grant says. “And that has to do with age and the wisdom that comes with it.”
Cue the mother of all death scenes — and Grant has done a few. “I had a spectacular Death Star end in The Rise Of Skywalker. In Hudson Hawk I got killed by an exploding gold machine,” he says. “This one was really enjoyable — wind coming at me at jumbo-jet level from four industrial-sized turbine machines. Amazingly, the horns never came off.” As Alioth consumes him in his mighty, malevolent maw, Classic Loki lets loose a burst of laughter, cocking a snook in the face of peril.
Is that laugh a clue that Classic Loki could return? Was there some final trick up that tight green sleeve? It’s anyone’s guess, but one thing’s certain — the character has made a splash. “The amount of fan art I’m being sent, I realised that it has made a much bigger impact than I could possibly have anticipated,” marvels Grant. “And they’ve all given me muscles.”