Julia Garner Was “Confused” By ‘Fantastic Four’s Gender-Swapped Silver Surfer Casting: “I’ll Play Anything”
As Julia Garner joins the MCU, she’s getting a crash course in her mysterious Marvel comic book character.
The Golden Globe winner recently recalled how she joined the cast of The Fantastic Four: First Stepswhich premieres July 25, explaining she “was confused” over the fact that her antagonist role, the Silver Surfer, is now a woman.
“I met up with [director Matt Shakman]who’s lovely,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “We met up at some restaurant in Burbank or something, I don’t even remember, but I knew it was for the Fantastic Four.”
Garner continued, “And then I was confused because I was like, ‘Wait, isn’t the Silver Surfer a man?’ I was just like, ‘Okay, well, I’ll play anything.’ [Laughs] I was a very big fan of Matt’s, so there was already, in my mind, like, ‘I should probably meet with Matt Shakman because he’s a very smart director and I love his work.’ And then he was explaining to me that it’s actually Shalla-Bal and that whole thing.”
Although the role was physically portrayed by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surferthat character was Norrin Radd.
Doug Jones in ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’ (2007) (20th Century Fox Film Corp./Courtesy Everett Collection)
In First StepsGarner plays Shalla-Bal, the immortal empress of the plant Zenn-La and Norrin’s lover. In the comics, Norrin becomes the Silver Surfer after becoming the herald of Galactus in exchange for him sparing their planet. The sacrifice meant the lovers were separated for eternity.
“It’s going to be really interesting — I have to be so cryptic about everything, otherwise I’m going to have Marvel come after me,” explained Garner. “But it was described as there’s this mystery about her, and there’s this sense of this ambiguous energy going on of whether she’s good or not. She is the herald of Galactus, so she works for Galactus, but you’re not sure where she stands. Does she stand with her boss, or is she just doing what she’s told? She has this mysterious energy about her, and slowly that mystery will get solved with the audience throughout watching it.”
When asked if she would do a solo MCU movie for Shalla-Bal, Garner said, “A hundred percent, I would love to do that.”
“The Silver Surfer is such a cool character, and I feel like it’s so rare to be presented with any sort of mystery in this day and age,” she added. “So any kind of energy like that on screen, I know I want to see that, so that would be awesome if that happened.”
