Mark Ruffalo Hints That the Ancient One & Hela Might Be in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’

Tilda Swinton’s The Ancient One and Cate Blanchett‘s Hela may both be dead or presumed dead in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but if recent comments made by Mark Ruffalo are any indication, both women may just pop up again in the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War.

In a recent interview on the I am Rapaport podcast with Michael Rapaport, Ruffalo was asked about the actors he had worked with who had left the best impression. Ruffalo mentioned working Joaquin Phoenix and then mentioned both Swinton and Blanchett and that he had recently worked with them. While it’s possible that Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk/Bruce Banner in the MCU, was talking about having worked with Blanchett on Thor: Ragnarok, there don’t appear to be any other projects that would qualify as recent for the actors to have worked together on.

Of the two characters, Hela returning in Infinity War could actually make sense. Her fate wasn’t definitively explained at the end of Thor: Ragnarok as she appeared to have perished when Asgard was destroyed. But in Marvel Comics, Ragnarok is a cycle and, after being gone for a time, Thor reemerged, built Asgard in Oklahoma, and then restored the rest of the Asgardians — including Hela. That leaves two plausible options for her return.

The Ancient One would be a little more of a stretch, but it’s possible that she could appear in a flashback. Considering that there were reports of casting calls for what appeared to be flashback scenes for the film last month, having The Ancient One appear that way would make sense, especially as The Ancient One was also the primary caretaker of the Time Stone for many years.

And it’s not just that the characters could make sense in terms of story. Infinity War directors The Russo Brothers recently spoke with CNET about the movie and Joe Russo teased that there would be a lot of unexpected characters in the film.

“There’s going to be a lot of unexpected characters. There are more surprises packed into this film than any of the others. Part of that is character interactions, new interesting characters, characters that have made small appearances that are really getting fleshed out in this film. A lot of people enjoy the experience, so I don’t want to give anything away, but certainly you can expect lots of surprises.”

Avengers: Infinity War will debut on May 4, 2018.