Sophia Di Martino On LGBTQ Reveal & If She’s The Enchantress – Deadline

There was talk of enchanting on the most recent episode of Disney+/Marvel’s Loki, and we saw some mind meld between new heroine Sylvie, played by British actress Sophia Di Martino, not only with Tom Hiddleston’s title character, but also with the TVA authority’s Hunter C-20 (Sasha Lane).

However, don’t bestow any new titles on Di Martino’s Lady Loki just yet.

In a conversation with Deadline, Di Martino admits she wasn’t specifically informed by Loki‘s writers that she was the Enchantress.

In recent millennial Marvel comic lore, Sylvie Lushton aka The Enchantress was just an average girl living in the small Oklahoma town of Broxton until the Asgardians moved their home there. She wakes up with magical powers one day, and lo and behold, they were given to her by Loki. She ultimately moves to NYC and joins The Avengers.

“All I know is that the character is inspired by the comics, but she’s Sylvie [in the Disney+ series], and this is an entirely new backstory for her,” Di Martino tells Deadline.

Episode 3 turned out to be more than us just getting to know Sylvie, rather finding out details we never knew before about Loki. The episode was a big coming out for him.

There’s a moment when Sylvie and Loki are getting to know each other in the dining room on a train. She asks Loki, “How about you? You’re a prince. Must’ve been would-be princesses. Or perhaps another prince.”

“A bit of both,” Loki responds. “I suspect the same as you. But nothing ever…”

“Real,” Sylvie says, finishing his sentence.

The actress says, “When were filming it, we were aware how important it was. [Director] Kate [Herron] was really keen on getting that into the show. People have been waiting for it for a long time, and it was in the comics for a long time. It was really important to us, to her and a lot of people.

“In terms of playing it, we just played it like any other scene,” adds Di Martino as to how she and Hiddleston approached the drama in a less-is-more manner. Per Di Martino, some of those on set brought up the Al Pacino and Robert De Niro diner scene in Heat and how those two handled their two-hander dialogue with a nuanced grace.

“It’s two acquaintances having a chat on the train,” says Di Martino, “I didn’t realize it would be such a massive thing, and I’m so pleased it is. The engagement with it, and the reaction to it are incredible. I’m glad I didn’t over-play it.”

Episode 3 begins with Loki chasing after Sylvie, who has fractured the universal timeline into several strands, much to the ire of the TVA authority who controls it. Loki pursues Sylvie, and there’s plenty of fisticuffs between them and others. But as events simmer, they learn they’re more alike.

Talking about why Sylvie takes to Loki so quickly in the episode, Di Martino tells us, “Maybe it’s because she sees herself in him, maybe it’s because she finds him utterly ridiculous and she doesn’t see him as a threat. She sees him as this guy who is easy to wind up. He’s sort of in the way of her, and then a mutual respect is developed between them.”

Di Martino previously worked with Herron on her 2017 short Smear. Herron told us on a recent Crew Call podcast that when she pitched herself for the Marvel Loki directing job, there were already actors in mind she wanted to cast for the show. Di Martino submitted herself in a two-person scene on tape, and ultimately scored the part sans any testing opposite Hiddleston.

In regards to whether Sylvie always knew about Loki—whether he was always part of her plan to raise hell and disrupt the TVA—Di Martino teases “that will be interesting to see.”

And as far as Sylvie getting her own spinoff Disney+/Marvel series?

“Your guess is as good as mine,” says Di Martino. “They wouldn’t tell me even if they were thinking about it.”