How Loki head writer Michael Waldron went from Rick and Morty and Community assistant to launching a Marvel show

Vanity Fair

While a student at Pepperdine University, Waldron landed an assistant gig with one of his comedy heroes: Dan Harmon. As he sat outside Rick and Morty's writers' room, Waldron thought he'd catch Harmon's attention by organizing the show into a softball team. “What I knew about him before was that he was a guy that would love a bunch of attention, like everybody,” Harmon says. “When he started coaching the softball team, it became obvious that he deserved attention.” Waldron adds: "We were terrible. We were the worst team in Burbank rec league history. But it was a great opportunity for me to trick everybody into reading my writing" Waldron leaned on his “Southern roots” to channel Friday Night Lights coach Taylor every week. “We lost every single game, and he’d take us out to the parking lot and give us this pep talk,” Harmon says. “What was the point of pep talking this terrible team? He kept on, which was a job that you couldn’t accomplish by being ironic or cynical.” The softball team led Harmon to offer Waldron a writers' assistant job on the fifth season of Community. “I look at all the amazing moments I’ve had in my career, and I’ve been so lucky, I don’t think I’ll ever have anything more exciting than that one,” says Waldron. In 2017, Starz bought into Waldron's idea about a show about wrestling brothers. But Heels proved to be a disaster and was left on the backburner (Heels is now set to premiere in August on Starz.) Meanwhile, Waldron landed a staff writer job on Rick and Morty, a show that Marvel boss Kevin Feige was a huge fan of. Waldron thus became the latest Dan Harmon alum to work in the Marvel world, following in the footsteps of Community directors Joe and Anthony Russo and Rick and Morty writer Jeff Loveness, who is writing Ant-Man 3. “Well, you can’t fight Kevin Feige in the street,” says Harmon. “He’ll just say, ‘Oh, I love that you’re fighting me, this is so wonderful,’ and everyone will start booing you for being a bully. I am honored and validated by the idea that if people leave me, they leave me for Marvel. That’s an amazing legacy.”

ALSO:

• Tom Hiddleston discusses the Loki premiere revelation: "It was so enjoyable, to see such a new aspect of him"
• Gugu Mbatha-Raw teases what’s to come for Renslayer and Loki
• Owen Wilson's Mobius already has an action figure