The Tiny Makeup Detail You Probably Didn't Notice in Loki That's Crucial to the Storyline

Because Loki takes place before Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, Noe needed to take Hiddleston back in time a bit.

"Loki's evolution through the last two Avenger films technically hasn't happened yet because we pick up back in 2012," Noe said. "Since we were backing up in time, we had to have Loki with those wounds created by Hulk at the climax of the first movie."

Re-creating those wounds in episode one, "Glorious Purpose," was crucial in establishing a cohesive storyline and making Loki fit into the Marvel Universe franchise — as was having the wounds heal in a reasonable timeframe. "Much discussion was had about how much time he has for his rapid healing before he enters the TVA, where he has no powers," Noe said. "A time gap between episode one and episode two allowed for them to completely heal."

The rest of the makeup, or lack thereof, was purposefully left timeless. "As we all know, time is different in the TVA."

We don't need to tell you how impressive and realistic prosthetics and special-effects makeup can be. However, that wasn't always the route Noe went. Many of the scrapes, cuts, and gashes that you see on Loki were actually the work of some expert painting and shadowing, courtesy of Noe's background in theatrical makeup.

"We could sculpt and make some cool prosthetics for his arms and glue them down and spend the time, but the reality is there are better ways to do it," Noe said. "A lot of the things I do to Tom, although the materials are adhesives and paint, are two dimensional as opposed to gluing on a prosthetic."

That's not to say prosthetics were never used — they just weren't preferred and weren't always needed given the dark, forgiving lighting of the series. "If we were shooting something like the finale of episode four in broad daylight, those little theatrical tricks of just using highlight and shadow as my base to paint wounds wouldn't work so well because the daylight would be so much more revealing."

Who knew?