Writer Michael Waldron is one busy guy lately. Not only did he lead the writer’s room for “Loki” and the upcoming Starz series “Heels,” but he’s also writing the upcoming “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and producer Kevin Feige’s upcoming ‘Star Wars‘ project. In the new episode of The Playlist Podcast, Michael Waldron sat down with Mike and Brian to talk a little about every one of those projects.
Since the “Loki” finale is still fresh in everyone’s minds, we naturally wanted to discuss the ending and if it was always cemented in to be what it was.
“The endings of these things are always in flux and there were always many different versions. It was always important to me to tell a complete story, which I think we did,” Waldron said. “And we always knew we wanted to propel Loki forward into the MCU. That, in fact, that [choice] almost felt like the most subversive ending – to not kill Loki.”
It’s also hard to deny that Tom Hiddleston has near-complete ownership over the Loki character, so we had to address Hiddleston’s involvement in the writing process.
“Tom was very involved with ‘Loki’ early on. As soon as we had a draft of the pilot, he was reading,” Waldron said. “He and I were having meals together, shaping it. He helped me so much in just finding the voice of the character. I’m a guy from the southeast United States, so a couple of times he was like, ‘I don’t know if Loki would say this’”
We also got to chat about ‘Heels,’ Waldron’s upcoming pro wrestling drama on Starz, and how he used that pilot script to jumpstart his career.
“That was my baby. ‘Heels’ was the script that I guess started my career. When I wasn’t watching ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Indy’ [as a kid], I was annoying my parents watching wrestling,” Waldron said. “That was my comic books, that was the mythology I was obsessed with, I think because it was serialized…and when I was an intern on ‘Rick and Morty’ back in 2013, I wrote ‘Heels.’”
You can stream “Loki” in its entirety now on Disney+, “Heels” premieres Starz on August 15, and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is slated to hit theaters on March 25, 2022.
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