Was Tom Hiddleston really set to play Kang in the MCU before Jonathan Majors?

Jonathan Majors is Kang the Conqueror. For better or for worse, this is an undeniable truth both in the Sacred Timeline and across the entire multiverse — thanks to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s post-credits scene, we know every Kang variant looks like Majors. That’s why there’s been such intense scrutiny over Marvel’s (lack of) response to the actor’s much-publicized arrest for domestic violence and its subsequent fallout. As the studio went all in on Majors, though, it seems it is sticking by him for the foreseeable future.

It’s currently unclear which other actors, if any, were in contention to play this all-important role — the big bad of the entire Multiverse Saga — before Majors was hired, but it turns out things could’ve have gone in an entirely different direction if early plans for Loki season 1 had come to pass. Yes, at one point, the God of Mischief himself Tom Hiddleston was touted as potentially claiming the role that ultimately went to Majors. But does this mean Hiddleston really could’ve been our Kang?

What was the original plan for He Who Remains in Loki season 1?

Well, no, not exactly. In an interview with Den of Geek, Loki executive producer Kevin Martin revealed that He Who Remains being unveiled as a variant of Kang in the show’s season 1 finale was not always set in stone. Before the idea was landed upon to make the episode an all-important launching point for the evolving storyline of Phase Four and beyond, the notion was thrown around that perhaps He Who Remains could be unmasked as a variant of Loki instead, with Hiddleston taking on the part.

As Martin explained:

“We just thought [He Who Remains] would be a great title for the last man standing in the multiversal war. In the writers’ room, all ideas are on the table, and there were conversations about what if Loki was He Who Remains.”

Needless to say, He Who Remains being outed as a Loki variant would’ve changed the shape of the Multiverse Saga on a fundamental level. Loki as a series would be a lot more standalone, for starters, and that would’ve presumably meant that Kang (probably still played by Majors, by who knows) would’ve been dropped into Quantumania without any prior warning or set-up. As muddled as that movie is anyway, at least be grateful it had some help from Loki season 1 in bigging up the big bad.

So, to put it straight, there was never a point when Tom Hiddleston was considered to play Kang. However, he did almost play He Who Remains, who could’ve turned out to be a totally different character than the one we got. Hiddleston has already been the major villain of the MCU once before, when he invaded Earth in The Avengers, so he’s likely more than happy to leave it to others to take up his mantle while he gets to play at being an anti-hero in his very own Disney Plus series.