Ryan Coogler, Dominique Thorne and the ‘Ironheart’ Team on Introducing [SPOILER] Via That Surprise Cameo and Setting Up Riri Williams’ Future in the MCU

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “The Past is the Past,” Episode 6 of “Ironheart.” The six-episode series is now streaming on Disney+.

Over the course of Marvel Television’s “Ironheart,” teen genius Riri Williams goes on a wild ride — fighting high-tech foes in a quest to fund her dreams of creating a suit of armor that will save those she loves and, in a parallel journey, an effort to unfreeze herself from deep-set grief. But nothing could prepare Riri, or the actor who plays her, Dominique Thorne, for the twist that caps the show’s final minutes.

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In the finale, Riri faces off against her former heist crew’s boss, Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos) a.k.a. The Hood, in a showdown that pits her brain for mechanics against his magical cloak. Actually, Riri and her people surmised that Parker’s magic comes from Dormammu, the inter-dimensional entity that audiences might remember as the big bad in 2016’s “Doctor Strange.” So, when building Riri’s latest armor (her most powerful yet), they’ve called on some magic of their own. In fact, in an earlier episode, audiences get to meet the man who gave Parker the hood: a mysterious figure played by Sacha Baron Cohen. (The “Borat” actor’s casting leaked while “Ironheart” was in production in 2022, but his character was never officially confirmed, so fans have speculated about who exactly he would play ever since.)

When it’s time for the magic versus metal duel, Riri first takes down a supercharged Ezekiel Stane (Alden Ehrenreich), who ultimately didn’t want to hurt her, so it was light work for Ironheart. Then, she defeats Parker in an explosive duel. Immediately after, though, Riri enters a local pizza parlor, which is in disarray due to the battle and also empty, save for a lone patron: Dormammu.

He lays out the facts. Despite defeating Parker, Riri’s circumstances still haven’t changed: she doesn’t have the funds to create the technology she wants, and her best friend, Natalie, has now been lost again, since her suit couldn’t hold both the magic infusion and science that recreated her (as the holographic A.I. named N.A.T.A.L.I.E.), simultaneously. Dormammu can help — but only if Riri is ready to make a deal with the devil, so to speak.

But wait! He wants to clear up one thing first. The notion that Riri thinks he’s Dormammu is, quite frankly, offensive.

Why? Because Baron Cohen is actually playing Mephisto, the more powerful interdimensional demon and long-awaited supervillain, who many fans speculated would pop up in Marvel’s first TV offering, 2021’s “WandaVision.”

“I learned in the midst of our shooting,” Thorne tells Variety about learning of the surprise. “So, by the time they gave me the correct name in the script, it was like ‘Whoa, the Reddit guy! The guy from all the rumors. He’s in this show? OK, y’all are serious!’”

For the star, the casting was a vote of confidence that Marvel leadership was invested in Riri’s story.

“The true Marvel fans know that Marvel always has a plan,” Thorne adds. “So, to know that they’ve chosen to introduce him here with Riri Williams, with Parker Robbins, it’s strategic and it has a place in the larger storytelling and in the larger twists and turns that this phase will continue to unveil. And it is just a joy to get a seat on that ride.”

Likewise, Ryan Coogler — the Oscar-nominated “Black Panther” director, whose Proximity Media company co-produced “Ironheart” — believes Mephisto crossing paths with Riri makes sense.

“I love the combination of high and low,” Coogler says, in a Zoom conversation with the series’ head writer Chinaka Hodge.

“It’s funny, when I first met Jon Watts in 2016 and he was doing ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming,’ Spider-Man was like basement level, like fighting underneath the street-level villains. Then, by the time ‘No Way Home’ comes around, he’s dealing with Doctor Strange and going through different realities and shit.”

The same is true for Riri’s trajectory, but over a shorter period of time. “I love the compression that we have in this show,” Coogler explains, pointing to the selfie video of her and Natalie bigging themselves up about the future, which opens the pilot episode. “Just two kids trying to make a way for themselves and watching Riri get so in over her head, not just at street level, but Armor War level, and then eventually encountering a seemingly all-powerful, mystical being, and realizing that that was where the show was headed the whole time.”

About Mephisto, specifically, Coogler adds: “I just absolutely love that we’re not meeting him in ‘WandaVision’ or ‘Agatha [All Along].’ You’re meeting him through this stressed-out, young Black genius. When you watch the show, it’s like, ‘Oh, that was how you always were gonna meet him.’ It wasn’t gonna be in ‘Loki.’ That’s the trickster; that’s how he works. That’s where he’s gonna be: in a pizza shop in Chicago, like, where you would absolutely never expect him.”

It makes sense for Mephisto to make a deal with Riri because, as Coogler points out, everybody wants a piece of her power. “When we first met her, the government wanted her. Talokan wanted her,” he says, then cracks. “MIT don’t want her. But she was always wanted. She was always desired by people who knew [her potential]. That, for me, just says so much.”

Hodge describes the decision to introduce Mephisto as a “collaborative” one. “I could tell the story about process, and you would know how benevolent Kevin Feige is,” Hodge teases. “But I will say that it was a collaborative effort, where we all landed on Mephisto together, but there was one of us in the room who led us there, and I’m eternally grateful for him leading us that direction.”

But including Mephisto in the plot wasn’t the “initial idea,” notes Marvel’s Zoie Nagelhout, an executive producer on the show. “If you look to publishing, Parker’s power is drawn back to Dormammu, who is also a very epic character in the MCU and who would have been very exciting to play with,” Nagelhout explains. “But as we developed it, we realized Mephisto was a better thematic fit for what the show is about.”

She continues: “Diving into these scenes of ambition and cost and what you’re willing to give up for the things you want, he offered a sort of interesting and heightened way to tie together the characters’ journeys — and in particular, Riri’s — so it became almost like a no-brainer to have him.”

The idea to cast Baron Cohen in the role came from “Ironheart” director Angela Barnes, who helmed the episode. (Barnes split directing duties evenly with Sam Bailey, who handled episodes 1-3.) “She pitched it, and we couldn’t unsee it,” Nagelhout says of Barnes. “And we’re just so lucky he said, ‘Yes,’ because at that point, I don’t think we could’ve gotten out of our heads that he was Mephisto.”

Keeping the actor’s role under wraps was another story. “If he was outside, we wrapped him up in tarps and the poor guy had to walk like two steps at a time,” Nagelhout recalls. On set, she adds, “Nobody but crew or friends of crew were allowed, so we would cast extras who were family members and beg everyone to keep it a secret. You do your best.”

Ultimately, Baron Cohen delivered an “incredible rendering of the character,” Hodge says, noting that he does two or three different versions of the Mephisto in the episode. That’s key, she explains, “Because Mephisto is a shape-shifter. And this is purely speculation, but I would love to see a version where Sacha does Mephisto a couple of iterations, and then maybe Meryl Streep is in the role in the future. You never know where Mephisto can be hiding, because one of his powers in the comic book is literally changing his form. Introducing him in the MCU is a really powerful tool, because it’s a key to open many doors.”

So, where will these stories continue? A second season of “Ironheart,” perhaps? Or what about Riri Williams flying back to Wakanda in Coogler’s “Black Panther 3”?

“I don’t know jack shit,” Coogler replies, laughing, when asked where she’ll pop up next. (“I just did an all-nighter writing ‘X-Files,’” he quips.) “I’m here for whatever Chinaka’s got coming at us next; whatever Kevin’s got coming at us next, you know what I’m saying. I think the audience is going to take to that ending and I can’t wait to see those characters again.”