Anyone who waited by the stage door at London’s Trafalgar Theatre last year may well have unwittingly been offered a major clue about a development within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In a move unlikely to have been approved by Kevin Feige, Scottish actor Ruaridh Mollica, making his West End debut in “Clarkston,” appeared at the door one evening wearing a “VisionQuest” hat. Smiling next to him: his stage co-star Joe Locke sporting an “Agatha All Along” cap.
Locke by then had already been seen in “WandaVision” spin-off “Agatha All Along” as Billy Kaplan, the reincarnation of Billy Maximoff (one of the sons of Wanda Maximoff and Vision). But it would still be several weeks before news leaked that Mollica, a Sundance breakout the previous year for his lead performance in “Sebastian,” would be joining the MCU as his older twin brother, Tommy Shepherd/Tommy Maximoff (also known as the superhero Speed) in the next series.
“It had been a little secret that we had to keep together on stage… so this was just some clues and hints!” Mollica tells Variety with an excited smile from the plush downstairs Drawing Room of London’s Raffles Hotel. We’re speaking the morning before the U.K. premiere of “VisionQuest” (now out on Disney+) and the fast-rising actor is a lively and enthusiastic ball of energy (a gruelling schedule of junket interviews is still ahead of him).
The youthful-looking 26-year-old had turned a good few heads in the indie world thanks to Mikka Mäkelä’s tender 2024 drama “Sebastian,” in which he played an aspiring writer in London who moonlights by night as a male escort. But by the time of the British Independent Film Awards towards the end of the year, where he was nominated for breakout performance, he already had “VisionQuest” in his sights, giving him one of the swiftest leaps from arthouse films to the superhero world to date.
Amusingly, just before sending his first “VisionQuest” self-tape (for a show he knew almost nothing about, not even the title), Mollica had appeared in “The Franchise,” HBO’s satirical send-up of the superhero franchise industry, playing a frazzled PA on the set of a deeply troubled spandex-heavy movie.
“So when I saw the Marvel logo I thought, oh, well, I’m never going to get that … because I’ve just taken the piss out of them!” he says with a laugh. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to matter, and within a few months he was invited to New York to screen test alongside “Vision” himself, Paul Bettany, and “VisionQuest” creator and showrunner Terry Matalas.
Mollica’s Tommy is introduced in “VisionQuest” midway through the first episode as a teenage hustler, pickpocket and conman on the streets of London. “He’s a grifter,” he says, adding that many of the references he used were from Matt Damon’s performance in “Good Will Hunting.”
“He’s an orphan. He not got anyone. He’s had to build who he is by himself, and there’s a loneliness to that, and a yearning for family,” he says. “And Matt Damon portrayed that character so unbelievably well that I feel like it is the archetype of a lot of male characters.”
But, being the second spin-off from a show in the fourth phase in Marvel’s increasingly complex universe of characters (many of whom were vanquished at the end of phase three), there’s a hefty backstory to contend with. In somewhat abridged form, at the end of “Agatha All Along,” Shepherd — having drowned — has the consciousness of Tommy Maximoff put in his body by Locke’s Billy.
“And suddenly, my character has visions of a family, but it’s a father who’s a robot and a mother who’s a witch… and they’re the Avengers… and there’s fucking lasers and guns and explosions!”
While Maximoff’s unorthodox heritage was something that Mollica had to try to get his head around, there was another element to the character much closer to home: his bisexuality.
“I feel like Marvel did a great job by casting a bisexual actor for this and it’s such an honor to be portraying that in the MCU,” he says. “I feel so seen.”
With Locke now as his superhero sibling, Mollica rejoices in the fact that there are “these queer twin brothers in the MCU together … it’s so cool.”
Mollica says there was some discussion around the fact that Tommy isn’t shown being attracted to other men in the show.
“He’s flirting with Lisa Molinari, but I think that’s makes me feel more seen as bisexual,” he says. “Because that’s the whole point. It’s not necessarily about who you’re dating, it’s about who you are inside, and who you want to flirt with. So I hope that me being bisexual and playing this part is good for people to feel seen and represented.”
As he grew into the role, Mollica says he simply ended up being himself. But there was another personal factor helping out here, one — unlike Tommy’s sexuality — that wasn’t in the comic books.
By the time of his test screening, it was undecided whether Mollica — born in Italy but raised in Edinburgh — would have to use an American or English accent. “And when we were doing it, Paul was just like ‘Terry, what do we think about his own accent?'” Mollica’s response: “Really? A Marvel superhero can be Scottish?”
Mollica sadly can’t claim to be the first Scottish superhero on screen (he looked it up — Richard Madden earned that crown as Ikaris in “Eternals”), but it’s still something he’s exceptionally proud of, not to mention one less thing to worry about.
“It’s always such a treat to champion Scotland,” he says, adding he’s “been so jealous” of Ewan McGregor who’s managed to “be Scottish, even in his American roles.”
And yet, while Mollica isn’t quite McGregor just yet, his Scottishness is something he’s been able to keep going across multiple upcoming projects.
Earlier this year, he shot the London-set indie feature “Bare,” based on Lorna Tucker’s memoir and being led by “Bridgerton” breakout Florence Hunt. Mollica says Tucker cast him — and the entire ensemble of actors — ”because of our own personalities.” He was, effectively, playing himself, “which was more scary and so much more vulnerable, because you’re not hiding behind a character.” The experience was, he says, the first job where he “realized I was an artist — because it was the first time you weren’t meant to act.”
Following “Bare,” Mollica jumped straight on a motorcycle alongside Channing Tatum for the Brad Pitt-produced film “Isle of Man,” about the famed race, playing a (Scottish) rider. It was role his agent effectively bullied into happening, with the actor — entirely coincidentally — having passed his motorbike test in January. “He messaged me to ask, ‘Can you send me as many pictures and videos you have of you on your motorbike,’ — he just kept sending them to casting and I kept taking them until they were like, ‘Fine, you can have a meeting!'”
And just this week it was announced that Mollica was joining the cast of “Laird,” the very Scottish Paramount+ saga about family feuds and shady billionaires causing mayhem in the Highlands being led by Kenneth Branagh. Mollica — currently sporting a crop of dyed ginger hair for the role (the series is now in production) — plays the son of Branagh’s Scottish landowner.
It’s been a wild couple of years for Mollica, underscored by the show that’s just landed on screens and the one he’s about to shoot.
“I went Paul Bettany being my dad to Ken Branagh being my dad,” he says. “How is that possible?”
Of course, should this sharp trajectory continue, Mollica will, at some point, have to put on an American accent.
“I can’t do one!” he whispers as we say our goodbyes. “No, hang on… for any casting director out there… I can do one!”