How “Loki ”resurrected a 1980s McDonald's
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Much of Loki takes place at the Time Variance Authority, the trippy, '70s-inspired bureaucracy that exists beyond time and space. But season 2 finds Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) venturing into the multiverse, traveling through the decades as they attempt to track down the missing Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino).
Episode 2, titled "Breaking Brad," continues to jump across timelines, zipping from a glitzy movie premiere in 1977 London to a remote McDonald's in 1982 Oklahoma. As part of their search for Sylvie, Loki and Mobius chase down the missing TVA hunter X-05 (Rafael Casal), who's refashioned himself as the swaggering movie star Brad Wolfe. Eventually, Brad leads them to the remote town of Broxton, Okla., where Sylvie has traded her god-like powers for a low-profile job as a fast food cashier.
Here, episode director (and longtime Marvel visual effects supervisor) Dan DeLeeuw tells EW how Loki meticulously recreated an '80s McDonald's, right down to the wallpaper.
Marvel/ Disney+ Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) in 'Loki'
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let's start by talking about Brad, a.k.a. X-05, who's escaped the TVA and is now moonlighting as an actor. How did you approach those '70s movie premiere scenes?
DAN DELEEUW: It was pretty great. It's definitely a non-sequitur from what [Marvel] traditionally has done, but it was such a great time. We based the premiere on a lot of the James Bond movies. They had the big marquees, which inspired the Zaniac sign outside, and we got to have the chase around London with the punks and the mods. We had to figure out ways to make sure that the mods made sense in '77. The mod phase was kind of coming back a little bit, especially with [the 1979 film] Quadrophenia. There's all these puzzle pieces. You worry about the script and the characters and everything else, and then you just spent a day picking out [background actors], like, "Hey, that's a really cool mod!" or "That's a cool-looking punk!" Time travel is fun.
There's a great chase scene where Loki is chasing Brad, and we get to see Loki actually use magic, creating doppelgangers and moving shadows. We haven't gotten to see a lot of that in the show so far. How did you want to approach that sequence?
Well, he's stripped of his magic in season 1. It was something that I missed, but they needed to do it for story reasons. But it was originally scripted as just a chase through London. We were going to play with it as inspired by The French Connection. But you start asking questions, like, well, Loki is out in the world. He has magic. Why is he chasing this guy? So, we did a bit of a misdirect. It's been drilled into Loki's brain by Mobius: Don't use magic, don't use magic, don't use magic. And then Brad ends up tricking him, and at that point, Loki's like, "Oh, okay," and switches back into his darker side.
He uses his magic to play a cat-and-mouse game, making the punks and the mods and tricking Brad to have the shadows grab him. He could have just caught him, but he really needs to twist the knife a little bit. So, it was really great designing that. From a story standpoint, we wanted to make it a part of his character as Loki's figuring out who he is and accepting his dark side. He can be evil without being evil, and he can use Loki logic that only makes sense to Loki.
There's a long scene where Loki and Mobius are sitting in the TVA cafeteria, having a conversation over a slice of pie. What do you remember most about filming that sequence with Owen and Tom?
We were fortunate: We had time in pre-production, and it was just the collaborative nature of Tom and [executive producer Kevin Wright]. The writers, the executive producers, the directors, and all the actors, we would get together in the writers' room, and we would go through everyone's episodes. We wouldn't just focus on, say, my episode. I would be there for all the other episodes as well, and we would work it all out. It was a place where you didn't have the tension of the day to get things done. You could just sit there and play all day long.
So much of those interpersonal relationships and chemistry were built in that room. Then, when we got to the set, it was pretty much all figured out, so you knew where the characters were going to go. You had those lovely moments of Loki actually being concerned for Mobius, which is a first for Loki. He's actually not wanting anything from him. It's a straight moment, where you see how much he's actually shifted. He actually cares about someone, and it's honest.
I also wanted to ask about the McDonald's scenes with Sylvie. Tell me a little bit about working with the production design team to create that era-accurate McDonald's.
We talked about it, like, how are we going to achieve this? For a while, it was like, let's build a set. And then [production designer Kasra Farahani] pushed, like, "Let's find a location. Ultimately, it'll be better." We needed Broxton, Okla., to be outside in London, and you don't usually get a nice field that looks like Broxton, Okla. But they found a restaurant that had not been in business for a while. We walked in, and we were like, "Oh, wow." Kasra was there with all his designs and his artwork. It was great because it had the windows on the front that are of the '80s, and it had the windows that were curved.
Kasra reached out to McDonald's, and he got all the wallpaper designs. He also got a mold, so he could cast his own [plastic] hamburger. And it went from this restaurant that had leaks in the roof to having old cash registers and the McDonald's tree and a playground for all the kids to play in. It was this strange time warp.
Were there any details you particularly loved?
Well, because McDonald's was a partner, they just focused on everything. I don't think there was anything that really gave it away. I mean, the tables would never have lasted in a real McDonald's; they would've broken in the first couple hours. So, we had to be careful with those. But all the logos, all the artwork. There was a kitchen back there. It wasn't a working kitchen, but it had the little slides where they put all the burgers out. You couldn't cook on it, but McDonald's came out and they actually cooked hamburgers for us throughout the day.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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