Spoiler alert: This story discusses some general plot developments for Season 2, Episode 2 of “Loki,” currently streaming on Disney+.
For 30 years, Dan DeLeo has worked in visual effects, from “The Mask” to “Armageddon” to “Night at the Museum” — but he always dreamed that he might one day be able to direct. That opportunity finally arrived in 2019, when “Avengers: Endgame” directors Joe and Anthony Russo — who had worked with Deleeuw on visual effects on the previous three Marvel Studios productions — hired him to shoot some additional photography for the mammoth production. That gig led to second unit directing jobs on 2021’s “Eternals” and 2023’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” and then finally to the lead director’s chair for the second episode of the second season of “Loki.”
Deleeuw, who oversaw visual effects on the show’s first season, assumed he was hired because of his aptitude for the episode’s beats, in which Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his TVA compatriot Mobius (Owen Wilson) hunt down a rogue TVA. A soldier (Rafael Casal) comes to London in the 1970s, and later meets Sylvie (Sofia Di Martino) at a McDonald’s in 1980s Oklahoma. But DeLeo says executive producer Kevin Wright told him he was hired as director because, even when he’s working on visual effects, he “always talks about the story.”
DeLeo also discussed how he and Ki-Hui Kwan — who joined the show for season two — were surprised by how Hiddleston approached training for the show, why production decided to have Sylvie work at McDonald’s — and his reaction to the recent decision by Marvel’s VFX artists to unionize.
Since Sylvie lives in a branched timeline, have you ever discussed the existence of an alternate version of McDonald’s, instead of the actual McDonald’s?
We started saying, okay, you’re going to settle on a schedule, what restaurant do we use? At that point, there was an offer for RoxBurger — you know, the villainous corporation in the Marvel Universe, Roxxon. But he told no other story than what this fake restaurant was like. Thus came McDonald’s proposal. McDonald’s is a timeless company in a way, it crosses countries and borders. Everyone started talking about this nostalgic moment they had with McDonald’s. So, we quickly realize what Sylvie feels – being on the run for so long and seeing normal people, and just wanting to have that and leave everything else behind – we use McDonald’s to put the audience in a place where they can make a choice even on that very quickly. That’s the kind of deal you made about using McDonald’s.
Rafael Casal in the second episode of the series “Loki”.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
What were the biggest surprises about directing this episode?
Something I will always try to do in any other show I direct: it was the openness to collaboration that Kevin Wright had, which was particularly encouraged by Tom Hiddleston and his experience in theater. As the script nears completion, we invite all directors to come and watch their various episodes. All actors will come. The book is there. And we had a week and a half, two weeks where we went through each script individually, rehearsed them and played with them and made them better. It was such a great creative moment in the show. Once we started filming, we had a good idea of what we wanted to do. Ke [Huy Quan] He sat next to me. He saw it all happen, Owen and Tom playing with the lines. He leaned over and said, “Is this normal?” I say: “It’s normal for them!”
You’ve been working with Marvel for over 10 years, especially in visual effects. Did you always have an ambition to direct as well?
Yes. In high school and in college, we made small films—public access, when there was public access. It was something I always wanted to do. Even from a visual effects standpoint — designing the sequences and doing the animation — the storytelling was something I was drawn to. When I started working with the Russians, they were definitely encouraging and gave me the opportunity to do additional photography for “Endgame,” which led me to do second unit directing. I always approach something from a story point of view. So Kevin Wright saw that I had that kind of mind, and he invited me back for season two to direct it.
How did he tell you that?
Being at Marvel for 10 years, there are a few rumors going around. I learned that they had hired Justin and Aaron, and then I heard about Khosrau [Farahani], the production designer, got an episode. I was like, “Ah, there’s one left!” Then one day Kevin called me and said, “Yes, so how would you like to direct ‘Loki’?” “Yes!” It was that simple.
Last year, many visual effects artists who worked on Marvel projects expressed their deep frustration With their working conditionsWhich contributed to the final decision to vote on joining unions. What is your experience with those issues?
I support everything they do. I’ve been at it for a long time. The number of hours of visual effects has been ingrained in the system for years. From the beginning, we always had this difficult time. We take a couple of months off and come back to it again. What you see now is that the offers are much larger, and you have a lot of offers. A lot of artists on set, especially in visual effects roles, go from one big show to the next big show to the next big show.
There has to be something that creates a better work-life balance, just for the safety of artists, their families, and their creativity. Otherwise, you get diminishing returns. It’s your crew. You have to take care of them. This is something I think we need to think about and work on.
How did your experience with visual effects influence your approach to directing this episode, especially in terms of visual effects?
I can tell a story with something that doesn’t exist. In the original draft, there was a car chase. It didn’t make sense for Loki to be in a car chase. We decided we wanted to lean a little more towards Loki’s dark side and move away from the traditional haunting. One day I was imagining, “What would Loki do?” And he came out with shadow gags with horns and things like that.
Did you do anything that a director who didn’t work in VFX might not know about?
You already know what it costs in terms of time and difficulty, and when you’re trying to get through your day, what you’re going to do for it [VFX artists] If I try to shoot without getting the blue screen right, because I know the consequences, I will fight hard to get it right, so the artists don’t have to deal with it. Going into post-production, you know how much of an effect you can use to help tell the stories, in terms of whether you need to change the set a little bit, just to make it make sense as to where Loki is. There’s an editor we have at Marvel, Jeff Ford, who cut a lot of movies. Jeff is a master. He doesn’t change his pieces to fit the shots; I think this is an insightful way to see how to use some visual effects in post, without overdoing it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
