Ruaridh Mollica on VisionQuest and playing a bisexual character

Anyone waiting outside the stage door of London’s Trafalgar Theater last year may well have been unwittingly offered a major clue about a development within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In a move that Kevin Feige probably wouldn’t have approved of, 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 sports an “Agatha All Along” cap.

Locke was previously seen in the “WandaVision” spin-off “Agatha All Along” as Billy Kaplan, the reincarnation of Billy Maximoff (one of Wanda Maximoff and Vision’s sons). But it would still be several weeks before news broke that Mollica, a breakthrough at Sundance the year before 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 upcoming series.

“It was a little secret that we had to keep together on stage… so it was just a few clues and tips!” Mollica tells Variety with an excited smile from the sumptuous ground floor lounge of London’s Raffles Hotel. We’re speaking the morning before the UK premiere of “VisionQuest” (now available on Disney+) and the burgeoning actor is a lively, enthusiastic ball of energy (a grueling schedule of junket interviews still awaits him).

The 26-year-old has turned quite a few heads in the indie world thanks to Mikka Mäkelä’s tender 2024 drama “Sebastian,” in which he plays an aspiring writer in London who moonlights at 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 his outstanding performance, he already had “VisionQuest” in his sights, giving him one of the quickest leaps from arthouse film to the superhero world yet.

Amusingly, just before he sent in his first self-reel “VisionQuest” (for a series he knew almost nothing about, not even the title), Mollica had appeared on “The Franchise,” HBO’s satirical show about the superhero franchise industry, playing an exhausted PA on the set of a deeply troubled, spandex-heavy film.

“So when I saw the Marvel logo, I was like, oh, well, I’ll never make it… because I just screwed them up!” he said laughing. Fortunately, that didn’t seem to matter, and a few months later he was invited to New York for a 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 crook,” he says, adding that most of the references he used came from Matt Damon’s performance in “Good Will Hunting.”

“He’s an orphan. He has no one. He had to build who he is on his own, and there’s a loneliness to that and a longing for family,” he says. “And Matt Damon portrayed this character so incredibly well that I feel like he’s the archetype of a lot of male characters.”

But, being the second spin-off in a Phase Four series in the increasingly complex universe of Marvel characters (many of whom were defeated by the end of Phase Three), there is a heavy story to contend with. In somewhat abbreviated form, at the end of “Agatha All Along”, Shepherd – after drowning – has the consciousness of Tommy Maximoff put into 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 it’s the Avengers… and there are fucking lasers and guns and explosions!”

While Maximoff’s unorthodox heritage was something Mollica had to try to understand, there was another element of the character much closer to home: his bisexuality.

“I feel like Marvel did a great job casting a bisexual actor for this and it’s such an honor to embody that in the MCU,” he says. “I feel so seen.”

With Locke now as his superhero brother, Mollica raves that there are “these queer twin brothers together in the MCU… it’s so cool.”

Mollica says there has been discussion about Tommy not being shown attracted to other men on the show.

“He flirts with Lisa Molinari, but I think that makes me feel like I’m seen more as bisexual,” he says. “Because that’s the whole point. It’s not necessarily about who you date, it’s about who you are inside and who you want to flirt with. So I hope that being bisexual and playing that role is good for people to feel seen and represented.”

As he grew into the role, Mollica says he just came to be himself. But there was another personal factor that helped here, one — unlike Tommy’s sexuality — that wasn’t in the comics.

At the time of his selection test, it was unclear whether Mollica – born in Italy but raised in Edinburgh – should use an American or English accent. “And when we were doing it, Paul was like, ‘Terry, what do we think of his own accent?'” Mollica’s response: “Really? A Marvel superhero can be Scottish?”

Mollica unfortunately can’t claim to be the first Scottish superhero on screen (he checked – Richard Madden took 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 thrill to become Scottish champion,” he says, adding that he is “so jealous” of Ewan McGregor who managed to “be Scottish, even in his American roles”.

And yet, even though Mollica isn’t quite McGregor yet, his Scottishness is something he’s been able to continue across several upcoming projects.

Earlier this year, he shot the independent feature “Bare” in London, based on the memoir of Lorna Tucker and directed by “Bridgerton” star Florence Hunt. Mollica says Tucker cast him – and the entire cast – “because of our own personalities.” He actually played himself, “which was scarier and a lot more vulnerable, because you’re not hiding behind a character.” This experience was, he says, the first job where he “realized I was an artist – because it was the first time you weren’t supposed to perform.”

After “Bare”, Mollica jumped straight on a motorcycle alongside Channing Tatum for the Brad Pitt-produced film “Isle of Man”, about the famous race, in the role of a (Scottish) pilot. It was a role that his agent actually urged him to take on, with the actor – quite by chance – passing his motorcycle test in January. “He sent me a message asking, ‘Can you send me as many photos and videos as you have of you on your bike’ – he just kept sending them to the casting and I kept taking them until they said, ‘Alright, you can get a date!'”

And just this week, it was announced that Mollica was joining the cast of “Laird,” Paramount+’s very Scottish saga about family feuds and shady billionaires causing chaos in the Highlands and directed by Kenneth Branagh. Mollica – currently sporting a dyed red haircut for the role (the series is now in production) – plays the son of Branagh’s Scottish landowner.

It’s been a crazy few years for Mollica, highlighted by the series that just hit screens and the one he’s about to film.

“I became Paul Bettany being my father and Ken Branagh being my father,” he says. “How is this possible?” »

Of course, if this steep trajectory continues, Mollica will, at some point, have to adopt an American accent.

“I can’t make one!” he whispers as we say goodbye. “No, wait… for any casting director… I can do one!”