Loki Kept Season 1 Sets for New Scenes

Even though the first two seasons of Marvel’s Loki series were filmed on different continents, some of the show’s most iconic locations were able to be filmed on the exact same sets. Take the Citadel at the End of Time, for example. Loki returned to the scene of its Season 1 finale in the third episode of Season 2. While there was some ruin and decay applied to the place, the Citadel mostly looked the same, and that’s because the production team kept the original set to use again.

Speaking to ComicBook.com about the latest Loki episode, director Kasra Farahani revealed that many of the sets from Season 1 were kept together so they could be the same in Season 2. Given the production change from Atlanta to London, those sets actually had to be sent to another country in order to be recycled for the new episodes.

“Yeah, we saved sets from Season 1,” Farahani told us. “And Season 1 was photographed — everything was built and photographed in Atlanta, Georgia in the US. Season 2 we made outside of London in the UK. All the sets that we reused, we brought over, but we saved them. Of course, when you see the Citadel in 2×03, you see that it’s in a ruined state. So we had to do a lot of work to it to bring that about.”

The Practical Sets in Loki

Instead of relying solely on a green screen for all of its biggest locations, the team behind Loki opted to make most of the show’s sets practically, meaning they’re all real sets that the actors walk through and interact with. Those practical sets were crucial to getting the look of the show just right, according to executive producer Kevin Wright.

“I think it is a rhythm of production,” Wright told ComicBook.com earlier this month. “These things, streaming shoots very fast. It shoots much quicker than our features do and something that we did in Season 1 that was started as necessity but became this great building point for us was building sets, making the world. Like, 360 builds because our cast could go in there. They knew what the world that they were getting into, and I think being able to do that, build a tangible world, you’re getting it in camera, you’re able to shoot fast. I think that actors really love it and you get great performances out of them, and it just became a thing of we wanted to prioritize the look of this show production design wise, costume design, cinematography, and it’s a thing that you do have to prioritize because these are craftsmen and artists, but they can only do so much and if you’re not giving them the time and the resources, they can’t do it. So I think that was something we just knew people liked the world we were building and it let us do it for Season 2.”

Marvel Studios fan-favorite Tom Hiddleston stars in Loki Season 2, returning as the titular God of Mischief for another round of time-traveling hijinx on Disney+ on October 6th. Loki is once again joined by Mobius (Owen Wilson) as the two attempt to keep the timelines intact. After the events of Season 1 saw his variant Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) kill He Who Remains and unleash the wrath of Kang the Conqueror upon the Multiverse, Loki must once again embark on an adventure to keep reality from collapsing. Loki was last seen in the post-credits scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, where he and Mobius were keeping tabs on one of Kang’s mysterious variants. Loki Season 2 will continue the story of the Multiverse Saga in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.