<\/p>
Sophia Di Martino has revealed that the backstory for her Marvel character Sylvie was \u201cmade up as we went along\u201d during production on the first season of Loki<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Disney Plus<\/a> series follows Tom Hiddleston\u2019s God of Mischief after he is arrested by the Time Variance Authority (TVA), following the mind-bending events of Avengers: Endgame<\/a>.<\/p>\n Di Martino is later introduced as a so-called \u2018variant<\/a>\u2018 of Loki \u2013 meaning a version of him from a branching alternate timeline \u2013 the likes of which the TVA have devoted their lives to eliminating.<\/p>\n This made her a fugitive from a very young age, forcing her to use a time travel device to hide out where the TVA would never think to look: in the final moments of doomed civilisations.<\/p>\n At an event hosted by the Royal Television Society<\/a>, Di Martino revealed the backstory for her character wasn\u2019t as rigorously mapped out as fans might expect, but instead crafted on the fly during filming by herself and the wider creative team.<\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>We didn\u2019t do loads of background with Sylvie, did we?\u201d Di Martino said to the panel, which also consisted of writer Michael Waldron, director Kate Herron and co-star Tom Hiddleston.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI just started from an instinct, I guess, and a lot of it was already there in the script. I just started from the place that she\u2019s a brawler and she\u2019s a survivor and she\u2019s been through hell and back. She\u2019s had a really, really s**t life.\u201d<\/span><\/p> That traumatic upbringing turned Sylvie<\/a> into a closely guarded person, but signs of a potential romance<\/a> between herself and Loki began to emerge as the series progressed.<\/p>\n Di Martino continued: \u201cI just started from that place and sort of building her character from there because her backstory is just so\u2026 she\u2019s been hiding in apocalypses for thousands of years so it\u2019s quite difficult to delve into that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd you know, it\u2019s a new character really from scratch, so I guess we just sort of made it up as we went along\u2026 and kept on discovering things throughout filming,\u201d she added. \u201cRather than doing loads of preparation, just sort of improvising in the moment a little bit and finding the character that way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n As for the apocalyptic origin story that was depicted, writer Waldron expressed his relief that it wasn\u2019t one of the concepts used up in his episode of fast-paced animated comedy Rick and Morty<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe big idea of hiding out in apocalypses\u2026 I was like, \u2018Oh, wow, I\u2019m glad I didn\u2019t burn that in a Rick and Morty episode\u2019. I\u2019m glad we got that in the show because that felt like a cool, really fresh time travel conceit,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Check out the Royal Television Society\u2019s complete Loki behind-the-scenes Q&A below:<\/p>\n