Outside of the big Jake Lockley reveal, the other major moment in the hour-long Moon Knight finale was Layla El-Faouly (May Calamawy) accepting Taweret as her avatar and becoming the Scarlet Scarab, the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first Egyptian superhero.
During our interview with producer Grant Curtis, he shared details on how they came to the decision to make Layla a superhero and how it all developed organically, resulting in a fitting conclusion for the first season.
"It was one of those things where, Layla’s character was always amazing on the page when we got to Budapest, because Jeremy and our writers did an amazing job, but, in Budapest, what we used to do, in Cairo, we would meet on the weekends with the actors, with Oscar and Ethan and May and Benson and Moorhead and Mohamed and Mohamed’s wife who was his producing partner Sarah, along with the writers there, Peter and Sabir, and we read the script, and we would just go through the script, script after script, and analyze the script, what can be plussed? What can we work on?
And it was one of the things, Layla was a great character going into Budapest, but once May got on board, and one Mohamed started dialing up the Egypt quotient, that's really where the Scarlet Scarab truly emerged. That was one of the things that was great about episode six, as you're alluding to, seeing the Scarlet Scarab’s journey be presented to the world, a new Egyptian superhero, was was was one of the great aspects of episode six that I love. I love hitting the rewind button and watching that slab of rock come down and the Scarlet Scarab emerge. Pretty cool. Sends chills up my spine to this day."
Director Mohamed Diab elaborated on the lengthy process and what it meant to him and his family, especially his daughter, being able to bring the first Egyptian superhero to the screen.
"First of all, I have to give it to the writers who came up with the idea of making Layla an Egyptian character. When I came along, she was half-Egyptian. We all chipped in, me and Sarah, as Egyptians, and definitely May, we helped shape the character. I can't remember whose idea it was to make her into a superhero, but it was a fantastic idea.
We all developed it together, but I would say that May was always the lawyer of Layla, she had the best influence on her and the most important thing for us, me and Sarah, was to make Layla, the opposite of all the tropes of Arab women being the submissive type. You know, from our part of the world, people think because women are under hard conditions, they're submissive and weak, when it's actually the opposite, like my mom's super strong, my wife, my daughter, are all super strong women.
So, it was very important to do that and the moment that she turns into a superhero, we don't know how that affected the Egyptians, the Egyptians deal with this show as their Black Panther. So much pride and by the way, tons of Indians and South Asians and everyone who doesn't look white feels okay, maybe as a brown person, it's the first time, one of the first times, we see ourselves there.
Even the music, by the way, a lot of Indians, you don't know like Indians especially, and South Asians are loving the show, loving the music, loving everything about it. So, I can't wait for them to see Ms. Marvel too, because it's expanding on that world, but my daughter when she was three, she wanted to straighten her curly hair, because she never saw herself in any Disney princesses, but today, having someone who looks as gorgeous as Layla being a superhero, I think it's such an important thing for a lot of girls and kids around the world."
Moon Knight is now streaming on Disney+!
When Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift-shop employee, becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life, he discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector. As Steven/Marc’s enemies converge upon them, they must navigate their complex identities while thrust into a deadly mystery among the powerful gods of Egypt.