‘Loki’s’ Wunmi Mosaku Leaned into Her Physical Power to Play Hunter B-15

Imagine being tasked with keeping an eye on Loki, the wiliest trickster and nastiest fighter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If you’re not careful, you’ll be left with either an empty set of handcuffs, or a knife lodged in your back. It takes a lot to keep the God of Mischief in check—and Hunter B-15 has what it takes. As a commanding officer in the Time Variance Authority, it’s B-15 who brings Loki in and keeps him on a time loop leash. She’s intimidating enough to stand up to a god, and make him heel.

This is the job that Wunmi Mosaku holds down on Loki, the third Marvel Studios original series for Disney+. It’s a dramatic departure for the actor, who was last seen in the haunting period piece horror/thriller Lovecraft Country. Ruby Baptiste was all emotion and vulnerability; B-15 possesses neither (at least so far).

In a chat with Decider, Mosaku opened up about strengthening her physicality and getting into the very specific mindset of a TVA agent. She also—spoiler alert for Episode 2—let us know what it was like to play a variant of Loki in a scene with none other than Tom Hiddleston.

Decider: I imagine that B-15 is unlike any character you’ve ever played before She was created by the Time-Keepers, may be a few millennia old, and isn’t a human but is a human. What was your take on that? Did you give B-15 an internal life to work with?

Wunmi Mosaku: Yeah, her internal life is the TVA. It’s like you said, [she was] created by the Time-Keepers and this is a whole world outside of the world that we know, time and space that we know. So my whole research was to understand the TVA and what makes me different from someone else in the TVA. And that was basically all I had to start, from the genesis, because there really isn’t anything other than the TVA [in B-15’s life], right?

Right—and unless there’s a big reveal that we don’t know about yet, B-15 is a totally original character. There’s not 50 years of continuity that you have to wade through. Did you enjoy getting to create a character that was fully your own in the Marvel Universe?

Absolutely, because you’ve got the script [to go off of]—and I guess everyone’s focus is to do the will of the TVA. There was still personality in between, but our motives are the same. But we’ve all got this different way of dealing with things, like Mobius and B-15 and Renslayer were all so different. So it’s starting from scratch and it’s really, really fun like this, and you’ve got complete freedom to do whatever.

Episode 2 features a great moment for B-15 where she’s possessed by the fugitive Loki variant. What was it like playing a version of a variant of Loki directly to Tom Hiddleston?

It was fun! I was like, tell me exactly what to do. If there’s anything that’s too Wunmi-esque, let me know if there’s anything that you think would be really good for me to do, let me know. And so that was really fun.

A lot of the TVA scenes feels like The Office in a way, but with higher stakes. Did you feel that office vibe while you were working with your TVA co-workers, like Eugene Cordero and Gugu Mbatha-Raw?

Yeah, it definitely has a feeling, because it’s about the uniforms and there’s kind of a hierarchy. There’s the uniforms, and we all go to the same studio every day, so it does feel like there’s a routine-ness and an office feel to it in a way. The water cooler is like our hand sanitizing station, you know? [Laughs]

Before Loki, you played Ruby in Lovecraft Country, which was a commanding character but in a very different way than B-15. B-15 is very physical. You’re a bruiser and you’re tough. How did you get into that mindset?

We have stunt training every single day and there are these drills for the TVAs that we have. So we all have basic movements that are part of our training that all of our characters would have gone through, so that there’s this generic physical vocabulary amongst all of us. And I really enjoy going into the character physically first. I’ve not really done that before, and I really enjoy exploring my physical power, as well. I have never really done that before and it was really fun.

How did you get Loki? Was Lovecraft Country already out at that point or…?

No—I had just wrapped on Lovecraft Country, went home and did auditions for the next year, and I was sent a script—not a script, some scenes for an untitled project. I had no idea what I was auditioning for. Generally with those kinds of things, you take it seriously because if anyone’s being top secret, it’s likely to be something big. And so I sent off my audition, which was a self-tape, and then I was home in the UK at my mom’s house and I got a call from my agent in the middle of the night saying I’d been offered Loki, and I was like, “When did I audition for Loki?” I was so excited but couldn’t tell anyone. My sister is a huge Marvel fan and I had to keep a secret from her until I was given the okay. [Laughs]

New episodes of Loki premiere on Disney+ on Wednesdays.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Stream Loki on Disney+