Loki: Ke Huy Quan Played Marvel Role as Variant of Beloved Character

Ke Huy Quan took inspiration from The Goonies' Data when joining the MCU.

By Jamie Jirak

The second season of Loki was a big hit on Disney+ last year, and it featured the return of Tom Hiddleston in the titular role in addition to other fan favorites from Season One. The season also featured MCU newcomer Ke Huy Quan as Ouroboros AKA O.B., who audiences instantly fell in love with. Before he was starring in MCU projects and winning an Academy Award for Everything Everywhere All At Once, Quan was known for the roles he played as a kid: Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Data in The Goonies. Recently, Quan told Collider that he thinks of Loki's O.B. as a variant of Data. 

"It was because I didn't audition for this role, it was offered to me. In the beginning, when I read the script, I fell in love with the character right away, but I didn't quite know how to play him," Quan explained. "I had meetings with our writers, with our showrunner, with Tom Hiddleston, and I was trying to pick their brains to see what their vision was for this character. They were very supportive, and they offered a lot of suggestions and advice. I felt this tremendous pressure because I didn't want to disappoint the fans. I struggled for a long time, and it was not until I went and saw the Ouroboros set and the stage that they were building the set in. It was called Roger Moore, and as you know, Roger Moore played James Bond, and Data from The Goonies loves James Bond, and it dawned on me that O.B. could be a variant of Data from The Goonies."

"From that moment on, I knew exactly how I wanted to play him," he continued. "The only thing is, I just have to time slip back into 1985 to try to remember what it was like to play this character and to bring all that energy and memories I had, and time slip back into the TVA and put all of that into Ouroboros. Honestly, ever since the show came out, reading all those wonderful comments and knowing how positively the fans reacted to this character, it has been really heartwarming." 

O.B.'s Loki Costume Had Nods To Data:

Last year,  ComicBook had the chance to chat with Loki costume designer Christine Wada, and we asked her about working with Quan, and she revealed that O.B.'s costume has some nods to Data. 

"Oh my god, it's just like he brings a jumpsuit life to life," Wada shared when asked about working with Quan. "And it was really fun because he talked about, well, the first fittings, or maybe it was a phone call, he talked about patches because Data had patches and he was like, 'What about patches? It'd be so fun.' And it was really, but then it quickly just became OB. Now just he brings so much, I mean, you could put him in a paper bag and he would bring life to it."

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"He's so sweet, but he also is very dedicated and does his homework and really talks about whether, 'Should this feel a little more vintage?' I mean, we always wanted it to feel like the '30s or '40s, so [his costume] was pulled from a vintage jumpsuit from that era."  

Stay tuned for more updates about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

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