Those Horrifying ‘Loki’ Season 2 Time-Slips Are Thanks To Tom Hiddleston ‘Performing His Heart Out’

With the arrival of Loki Season 2 came a new set of problems for the titular Trickster God: Time-slipping. Thanks to being shoved back into the Time Variance Authority from He Who Remain‘s Citadel, Loki can’t stop horrifyingly moving through time at random intervals. While Mobius assures his disappearing pal that it doesn’t look that bad, he eventually admits that, okay, it’s terrifying because Loki looks like he’s being born and dying all at the same time.

According to Loki producer Kevin Wright, the effect was significantly aided by Tom Hiddleston, who gave it his all with every transformation, of which there were many.

“There is a ton of raw material of him. If he’s being pulled in five different directions, he’s giving you those bespoke performances for each one of those,” Wright told TVLine. “If you were on set, what you would see is Tom Hiddleston performing his heart out and acting those things. And so much of the pain that comes through is because it is baked into his performance.”

Obviously, there’s some CGI thrown into the mix, or else Hiddleston would seriously need to see a doctor, but Wright couldn’t emphasize enough that it was mainly the actor working without a motion capture suit or even a harness.

“It’s his physicality,” Wright said, “He was pulling from many years of dance lessons.”

Loki streams new episodes Thursday on Disney+.