With Silver Surfer debuting in the MCU in the upcoming The Fantastic Four: First Steps, actress Julia Garner recently teased the character’s “ambiguous energy” and her alliance with the film’s big bad Galactus. She also admitted to be “confused” at first by the gender swap.
“I met up with Matt [Shakman, director], who’s lovely. We met up at some restaurant in Burbank or something, I don’t even remember, but I knew it was for the Fantastic Four. 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’,” she said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“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,” she continued.
We finally got an official look at the character a couple of weeks ago in a new Fantastic Four trailer, which featured Garner in all her silver glory. In the Marvel comics, Garner’s Shalla-Bal is actually the love interest of scientist Norrin Radd, the original Silver Surfer. We’ll have to wait to see the movie to find out how this different version came about.
“I knew about some of the famous comic book characters, some of them I didn’t know,” Garner explained. “So when I got presented with this opportunity, I was like, ‘Wait, what? Me?’ Yeah, I was in disbelief, almost because it was so cool. I knew who the Silver Surfer was, and I got to know the Silver Surfer more when I signed on to the project. I really dived in. I read a lot of the Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer comics before starting the project, and I knew that this Fantastic Four was going to be told in a very different way than even the other movies.”
The Ozark star also offered some details about what we can expect of her character in the upcoming film, although most details are still under wraps. “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,” she joked.
“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.”
Garner said Silver Surfer is “different than anyone” she’s ever played before, which was one of the reasons why she went for the role. It’s also about reaching a bigger audience, as she explained: “I don’t expect everybody to watch Ozark or [Inventing] Anna or The Assistant. Some people are only going to watch certain things, so that’s why I want to branch out to every genre, and that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to do Marvel – it’s reaching a different kind of audience.”
The Fantastic Four: First Steps hits theaters July 25 to kick off Marvel Phase 6. In the meantime, read our guide to all the other upcoming superhero movies still to come from both Marvel and DC.
