There’s an academy award-winning actor who has spent greater than three a long time leaping between motion motion pictures, dramas, and comedies. Seems, he has additionally crossed over into the occasional Martian survival scenario. He has been nominated for Academy Awards throughout screenplays, producing, and appearing. This actor has labored with a number of the largest administrators in Hollywood, and one way or the other managed to turn into a kind of actors who could make nearly any film really feel like their very own. However there’s one other unusual little element hiding in his filmography.
You may not consider or bear in mind how they’ve additionally performed Loki from the Marvel comics. Not simply as soon as. However twice. No, this isn’t some multiverse trick the place he secretly grew to become the God of Mischief and no one seen. He has portrayed the character in two completely different Marvel productions, though solely a kind of appearances counts as a part of the MCU. The opposite got here years earlier, in a film the place Damon wasn’t precisely taking part in the Loki most followers have been anticipating.
Matt Damon Has Performed Loki Twice, However Solely One Model Is MCU Canon
The primary time Matt Damon performed Loki got here in Dogma, Kevin Smith’s 1999 non secular comedy. Damon performed an angel named Loki alongside Ben Affleck’s Bartleby. Sure, that Loki. Earlier than the MCU turned the identify into one among Marvel’s largest characters, Damon was already strolling round Hollywood with it. This model, nonetheless, has nothing to do with Tom Hiddleston’s Marvel character. He’s a fallen angel, not the adopted brother of Thor, and the film may be very a lot doing its personal factor. It’s a kind of weird items of casting trivia that sounds made up till you really look it up.
Then Marvel got here calling. Damon appeared as Loki once more in Thor: Ragnarok, though he wasn’t really taking part in the true Loki. He performed an Asgardian actor performing Loki in a stage manufacturing about Loki’s supposed heroic life. It’s a fast look, however it’s Matt Damon taking part in Loki whereas additionally technically taking part in an actor taking part in Loki. As a result of apparently one layer of Loki wasn’t sufficient. The joke works even higher as a result of the true Loki, performed by Hiddleston, is correct there watching the efficiency. Damon would later return to the function in Thor: Love & Thunder, making the MCU model of the joke even tougher to overlook.
Matt Damon’s Loki Got here Earlier than and After the MCU Modified the Character Endlessly
The Dogma connection is especially humorous once you notice what actually occurred. Damon performed Loki in 1999, almost a decade earlier than the MCU formally started with Iron Man. On the time, Loki wasn’t but the family identify he would turn into. Though the 2 Lokis characters should not technically the identical, the identify nonetheless brings up a connection to the Norse mythology and Marvel Comics character. And but, there was no Tom Hiddleston efficiency. No Avengers. No Loki tv collection. Simply Matt Damon taking part in a fallen angel in a really Kevin Smith film. Then the MCU launched its personal model of the mythological Loki from its comics, and cemented the character in popular culture.
That makes Damon’s two Loki appearances a enjoyable little piece of Hollywood historical past. One got here earlier than the MCU existed. The opposite got here after Marvel had turned Loki into one among its most recognizable characters. And Damon managed to play each with out ever really changing into the primary Loki followers know. That’s the sort of casting coincidence that feels nearly too excellent. Someplace on the market, Damon has technically performed Loki twice. Tom Hiddleston nonetheless has the throne. However for one very unusual nook of film trivia, Matt Damon received there first.
The funniest a part of the entire story is perhaps that Matt Damon’s Loki streak suits completely with Marvel’s obsession with alternate variations, pretend identities, and characters who refuse to remain useless. Damon has additionally turn into well-known for shock appearances and taking part in exaggerated variations of himself, so his unintentional Loki résumé feels unusually on model.
In the meantime, Loki has gone from Thor’s troublesome brother to one of many MCU’s most complex characters, full with time journey, variants, and sufficient existential crises to fill a number of timelines. Think about the chaos Loki will trigger in Avengers: Doomsday. So possibly Damon by no means stole the Loki highlight—however someplace within the multiverse, there’s a timeline the place he completely did. Hiddleston ought to in all probability watch his again.