Chris Hemsworth and Taika Waititi Explain Why Loki Isn’t in Thor: Love and Thunder

Loki lives — but not in Thor: Love and Thunder. After antagonizing Thor (Chris Hemsworth) in the Thor and Avengers movies, god of mischief Loki (Tom Hiddleston) died heroically at the hands of Thanos (Josh Brolin) in Avengers: Infinity War. Thor mourned his adopted brother, who would return when Earth’s mightiest time-traveled to 2012 and the Battle of New York in Avengers: Endgame. That Loki, a.k.a. Variant L1130, would escape his timeline with the Tesseract, spinning off into the Disney+ series Loki. Even with the Multiverse opened, the Loki of Earth-616 remains dead — and as Hemsworth and director Taika Waititi joked in a new interview, Hiddleston is dead to them. 

“He didn’t want to be involved. He said ‘I hate all of you, and in particular me,’ and I was like, that’s a shame,” Hemsworth joked of his longtime Marvel co-star in an interview with CinemaBlend. “And that’s it. I mean, how many times can we kill him?” 

More seriously, Hemsworth added,  “We love Tom. We love Tom. Yeah. But he’s dead. Not him, but the character of Loki.” 

“No, no, he’s just dead to us,” quipped Waititi, who returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for his follow-up to 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok. Said Hemsworth, “He’s obviously dead to us, as far as friendship goes.” 

Loki returns in the second season of his spinoff series, now filming with Marvel’s Moon Knight directing duo Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson for an expected 2023 release on Disney+.Hiddleston reprises his role as Loki Variant L1130 alongside co-stars Sophia Di Martino (Sylvie), Owen Wilson (TVA Agent Mobius M. Mobius), Wunmi Mosaku (Hunter B-15), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Ravonna Renslayer), and Tara Strong (Miss Minutes). 

In Thor: Love and Thunder, Thor embarks on a journey unlike anything he’s ever faced — a quest for inner peace. However, his retirement gets interrupted by Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), a galactic killer who seeks the extinction of the gods. To combat the threat, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi), and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who — to his surprise — inexplicably wields his magical hammer. Together, they set out on a harrowing cosmic adventure to uncover the mystery of the God Butcher’s vengeance.

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Taika Waititi, Russell Crowe as Zeus, Jaimie Alexander as Sif, and Chris Pratt, Karen Gillan, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Sean Gunn, Vin Diesel, and Bradley Cooper as the Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Studios’ Thor: Love and Thunder opens only in theaters July 8.