Loki's Sophia di Martino fancies an MCU future: "I’d love to play her again"

Warning: This interview contains minor spoilers for Loki.

Hi Sophia – How are things? How’s it been in Loki?

You know what? It’s quite surreal. It’s been a strange few weeks for me!

I can imagine.

You know, waiting in the wings, and listening to people’s reactions, waiting to be able to talk to people. So it’s really nice to finally be here, and be able to talk to you about it.

What’s it been like keeping this secret for so long? When did you know you had the role, and how long did you have to keep it under wraps?

It was autumn 2019! So it’s been quite a while. Luckily, I’m very good at keeping secrets – maybe too good. I just haven’t told anyone what I’ve been doing for… you know, my mum didn’t know what I’ve been doing.

It’s been quite intense. And, yeah, I’m relieved to finally say the name "Sylvie".

Is it strange now that everyone knows? Do you still find yourself trying to keep it secret, almost, or something like that?

Yeah, definitely. I have to definitely check myself.. You don’t know everything yet. I still have to be careful!

That’s true. You’ve still got those instincts going. That was one of my questions, actually – we do learn a fair bit about Sylvie in the third and fourth episodes. But is there more to discover?

Yeah. There’s a bunch more to discover about everyone, I think. Things are going to get probably even weirder.

If such a thing is possible.

Exactly!

Obviously as we’ve seen in the show, Sylvie is an alternate Loki. But she’s kind of very much her own person. How would you say the two are similar? And how are they different?

Hmmm. I think Sylvie has got the mischief that Loki has. I think she’s got that sort of glint in her eye, and she enjoys the chaos, and she’s playful in that way. I think she’s pretty angry. I think that maybe she’s a lot angrier than Loki. And she’s got this mission that she has to go on.

I feel like because she’s been on the run for so long – you know, she’s come from quite a difficult place. She’s not grown up a prince. She’s not had it… not “as easy as Loki”. That’s not fair. But she’s just come from a very different background, which has probably made her a little rougher around the edges than Loki.

She’s not as elegant as him in her speech or the way she fights. She’s a bit more of a brawler, I would say.

You mentioned her speech there. That was something that jumped out at me. Obviously Tom plays Loki as quite aristocratic almost in his accent as much as anything, whereas you play Sylvie more or less with your own accent.

Yeah, exactly. We wanted to keep that. I didn’t want to do an impression of Tom, or play her, like you say, as an aristocrat, because that’s not who she is. It made sense to have a little bit of a softer, more regional accent.

Was there a conversation about how much you should make her like the Loki that we know, and how much you should make her different?

A lot of it came out of the script. [Director Kate Herron] wanted me to do my own thing with it, and I think that was where we started – that I would make her my own, in a sense. The fact that she’s a variant of Loki is, like you say, in the script, and the similarities are there. But we really wanted to make Sylvie her own person.

There were a couple of leaks concerning your character – how aware are you of all that? Is it the sort of thing you worry about?

I mean, I’m very aware of it, but I don’t worry about it too much, because I know I’m not going to say anything that I shouldn’t do.

I think it’s just nice that people are going to enjoy it, and it’s a shame sometimes when that’s spoiled. But to be honest, I think sometimes the dialogue that it creates is just as important as the show. People are really enjoying talking about it, and deliberating about it, and coming up with these, you know, crazy ideas, and their theories.

That’s all part of it. So I’m all for it.

It’s one of those things you have as well when you have a weekly show, as opposed to dropping all episodes at once. You do have that space to talk about it, and theorise.

Exactly, yeah. You have those watercooler moments, so you can regroup, and talk about what’s happened, and what you think is going to happen next, and what you want to happen, and what you don’t want to happen. People can get really excited about it, and it seems like that’s what people are doing. The engagement has just been totally overwhelmingly brilliant, so it’s great to see.

Speaking of those theories, a lot of people have theorised about connections with your character and the comic-book character Enchantress, who is also called Sylvie. In the most recent episode, your Sylvie is doing enchantments. Is that a nod to that character?

Um… she’s been inspired by the comics, and our story is inspired by the comics. But Loki is a new story, and it’s a new backstory for Sylvie. So it’s an entirely new story. But she is enchanting people, and therefore an enchantress. So… yeah.

So who knows? You can’t say.

Who knows?

I know it’s a really difficult show to talk about because there’s so much you don’t want to spoil. This is something I asked Michael and Kate: without spoilers, how are you hoping fans will feel once they’ve seen the whole series?

I just hope they think, “Wow. Holy macaroni. That was even better than I thought it could be.” I hope that we do the fans justice, and that we make a show that the longstanding Loki fans really love, because they’re important, and this character has been around for a long time. And we want to do him justice.

Was it daunting to step into that?

You know, I just think I buried my head in the sand a little bit. I’ve just tried to take each moment as it comes. I’m not the kind of person that gets sort of starstruck. I mean, I want to do a really good job. It’s a really impressive 10 years that Tom has poured all of this energy into this character. And that is super-impressive. But I’m never going to try to compete with that or anything.

I just want to be a part of it. And so I think “excitement” is probably the best word for it. I’m just super-excited and grateful to be here.

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If asked, would you be open to reprising Sylvie in other Marvel projects? Is this a character you could see yourself playing, even as long as Tom has?

I’d love to play her again, but I have no idea about that kind of thing.

That’s fair enough.

You have to ask Mr Feige.

I will. I’ll just give him a buzz.

Send him a text!

Final question: your Loki and Tom’s Loki appear to have bonded a little, but can they really trust each other?

Can anyone really trust Loki? Isn’t that one of his character traits? Maybe his whole thing is that maybe he’s a bit untrustworthy? But maybe you’ll just have to keep watching…

Read our latest Loki review.

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