But on the other end of the line was Owen Wilson, an actor and writer she admired and hoped would join her on a time-jumping journey through the MCU.
“It was the most detailed pitch I’ve ever done, to an actor, ever.
Wilson instantly put Herron at ease with his laid-back charm as she walked the actor through 10 years of onscreen lore for Loki, the god of mischief played by Tom Hiddleston.
It was all part of a whirlwind few years for Herron, who not that long ago was temping at a fire extinguisher company and struggling to land directing work even though she’d already helmed a BBC project with Idris Elba.
“I knew I’d be up against some really big directors, and I knew I wouldn’t be the most experienced in the room, so I , ‘OK.
Herron is now working long days finishing up Loki in Marvel’s production hub in Atlanta, where the British filmmaker has largely lived since getting the job in 2019.
Then after a few interviews with Kevin Wright and Stephen Broussard, two of the Marvel executives who got me ready for the big match, I went in to pitch to Kevin Feige, Victoria on the red carpet.
We just spoke about Loki and what was really important to us about the character and where we thought it would be fun to take him, as well.
I was cutting what we’d done, so I was like, “OK, this is tonally what is really working for the story.” Then we went back into what we hadn’t filmed and started adapting that stuff to fit more where we were heading.
We had a really wonderful writer called Eric Martin from our writers room, and he was our production writer on set.
He is playing a Loki expert, so at the beginning of production, Tom and I were talking.
“Oh my God, I’m going to talk to Owen Wilson.” He’s so laid back and nice, it immediately puts you at ease.
And also probably because he was newer to the Marvel world, he was like, “OK, how does this work?” I also pitched him Loki’s arc over the past 10 years, where that character has gone, but also explaining our Loki and what happened in Endgame and time travel.
At the same time, something Tom spoke about a lot was you have to go back for a reason.
For me, it was making sure that paying respect to what has come before — I know as a fan if there is a character I really loved and I found out they are making a show about him, I obviously would be so excited and so happy.
Something I always found was we would sometimes pitch something, and it would be at a good place, but he’d always be like, “OK, that’s great, but push it further.” Sometimes I’d pitch stuff and be like, “This is too weird,” and he’d say, “No, go weirder.” He wants to tell the best story and I found it really helpful having his eye across everything and the fact that he does challenge everything.
There are other actors I work with who are very meticulous and they want quite a few to warm up and get into it.
When you make an Avengers movie, you get a big board with every character that’s available, and whether the actor’s deals will allow them to appear or if that would need to be renegotiated.
I felt like everything was on the table if it meant it was good for story, and Marvel would be like, “We’ll work it out.” Me and the writers, we never felt restrained in that sense.
You get so deep into something when you are filming, it’s almost like writing it again when you are in the edit.
Sadly, I’ll probably check in on the internet a little bit, but I’ll probably go to bed when I finish because I think I’ll do a 12- or 13-hour day or something.
We want to run it like a movie.” So unlike a lot of television shows that are showrunner-led, this was run like a six-hour film.
The show is really about what makes someone truly good or what makes someone truly bad, and are we either of those things? Loki is in that gray area.
How do we take a character that people love, but from a lot earlier, and send him on a different path? That for me was interesting, getting to unpack that.
One thing I would say is the show for me, stylistically — I wanted it to be a love letter to sci-fi because I love sci-fi.
