When you’re right, you’re right, and well … I was right before I even knew that much about O.B. in Loki. When they said that he fixed things in the Time Variance Authority, I said, “Oh, he’s probably based on Data.” And guess what? This The Goonies-loving kid was RIGHT!
While writer and executive producer Eric Martin may not have based Ouroboros on Data from The Goonies himself, star Ke Huy Quan read the role and quickly realized who O.B. reminded him of. “When I first read the script, I instantly fell in love with Ouroboros,” he told Variety‘s Adam B. Vary. “You can see who this character is right away—his quirkiness, his humor, his passion for his job jumps right out of the page. In the process of trying to fine-tune how I want to play him, something dawned on me. I realized that this character is familiar to me. I think I know who he is. I have to go back 35 years ago, when I play Data on The Goonies.”
Quan went on to mention how people still come up to him talking about The Goonies and the impact that Data had on him:
“So many fans have come up to me, and the most asked question was, ‘Will there be a Goonies 2? And what is Data doing as an adult?’ This character of Ouroboros is kind of my answer to that. I view him as a variant of Data. What’s really interesting is, on my first day, I’m in full hair and makeup and costume,” he said. “I’m walking to the Ouroboros set. They built this amazing set on the second biggest stage at Pinewood Studios. I look up and I see the name of the stage is ‘Roger Moore.’ Now as we all know, Data loves James Bond. The character 007 inspires him tremendously. So I feel like there’s some cosmic connections to this character and Data. Playing him was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had.”
Data’s impact on me
As a young kid, I watched The Goonies a lot. My brother loved it and showed the movie to me. Later, when I moved to California and met one of my best friends, she also had a deep connection with the film. When I met Quan at an event, I told him that I told my best friend I was meeting him by just texting her the line “James Bond’s 007, not 00 negative.” She knew who I was meeting immediately, and he shared his excitement over how much Data meant to me.
As soon as I saw the first images of O.B., I knew that Data was an inspiration for this new Loki character. I admit that I didn’t think that it was a connection for Quan himself but instead that the production was leaning into the characters’ similarities. To learn that it was Quan who recognized their kinship and saw Data in a character like Ouroboros and wanted to use that for his performance? It means more to me than Quan could know. Ouroboros was easily my favorite addition to Loki. Yes, I’m probably biased because Quan often plays my favorite characters in things, but O.B. being Quan’s own continuation of Data just makes him that much more special to me.
(featured image: Disney+)
