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. 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.
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 had to build who he is by himself, and there’s a loneliness to that, and a yearning for family,” he says.
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. 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. 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.
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