Gugu Mbatha-Raw joins the cast of the Loki series on Disney+

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

One of several Marvel Cinematic Universe TV shows set to debut on the Disney+ streaming service is Loki, a six-episode series which will naturally focus on the trickster played by Tom Hiddleston. Production on the series is currently underway in Atlanta, and Deadline has reported a new addition to the cast as Gugu Mbatha-Raw has signed on.

As this is Marvel we're talking about, there's no information regarding just who Gugu Mbatha-Raw will be playing, but Deadline has heard that she will be a "prominent character, possibly a female lead." Mbatha-Raw is best known for movies such as BELLE, JUPITER ASCENDING, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX, A WRINKLE IN TIME, FAST COLOR, and MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN, as well as TV shows like Doctor Who, Undercovers, Black Mirror, and The Morning Show. In addition to Tom Hiddleston and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Loki is also set to star Owen Wilson and Sopia Di Martino. Last summer, Tom Hiddleston confirmed that the Loki we'll be following in the series will be the 2012 incarnation of the character, who hasn't yet been redeemed, with Hiddleston noting, "That's where he starts."

I feel like I know [Loki], I’ve been playing him for 10 years now, and that’s crazy to me. By the time it’s out, I’ll be 40, and when I was cast, I was 29, which is a great chunk of my life… but the point is that there’s a sense of "I know this character now, I feel the audience knows him." Playing him, and playing him truthfully, but presenting him with new challenges, which then have to change him in different ways, is the most exciting aspect of it. You have his specific gifts, his intelligence, his treachery, his mischief, his magic, and then seeing him come up against more formidable opponents the like of which he has never seen or known. I wish I could tell you what happens, but I can’t.

Loki is aiming for a spring 2021 release, but we won't have to wait that long for the first Disney+ Marvel series as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, starring Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan, is expected to drop in August 2020, followed by WandaVision, starring Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, in December 2020.