Loki Director Compares Sylvie to Robin Williams’ Jumanji Character

Loki director Kate Herron explained how Sylvie’s isolation helped shape her character and decisions — and why that makes her similar to Robin Williams’ character from the original Jumanji.

“He’s a little boy when he ends up captive in that game, and when he comes out, it’s obviously been a life experience,” Herron said, comparing Sylvie to Alan Parrish, who gets stuck in the titular game for almost three decades. “With Sylvie, it’s similar. She was a child when she had to go on the run, so she’s had a very difficult life. I would love to see more of it. As [writer and producer] Eric [Martin] said, she’s a rich character, there’s so much to be explored.”

“We’ve seen her as a child, but she’s lived for thousands and thousands of years, in apocalypses on the run,” Herron said of how much there’s left to explore with the character. “I think there’s so much more to delve into with Sylvie […] You’re filling in the blanks. You see [her on] Lamentis, and it’s horrific. And you’re like, ‘Well, what kind of person would she be, growing up in apocalypses? What kind of personality would that give her?'”

Though nothing official has been announced regarding the plot, Loki Season 2 will examine Sylvie in an even deeper way in all likelihood, given the consequential decision she made in the finale. Herron said that, at one point, there was even less Sylvie in the season. But over time, her past was delved into even more — and there’s still plenty left to reveal.

“This was before my time, but I know in the writers’ room, there were lots of avenues exploring Sylvie on the run and what her life was like,” Herron said. “I wouldn’t want to speak more to those, because I wasn’t there when they were being discussed. But something wasn’t in there that was important to me — I felt we should see her [history] in the TVA. Me and the team were talking about how it made complete sense, because episode 4 is all about twisting the idea that the TVA might be good on its head. And so that’s something that came in later, once I joined, was seeing her as a child. I think we needed to see that, not to understand her completely, but to get an idea of her motivations, why she’s so angry at this place.”