Julia Garner Talks About Her Silver Surfer Casting and She Was Just as Confused as the Fans — GeekTyrant

When Marvel Studios announced that Julia Garner would be playing the Silver Surfer in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, some fans were surprised and confused. Turns out, so was Garner.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Garner admitted that the casting blindsided her just as much as it did the fandom. Most comic readers picture Norrin Radd when they think of Silver Surfer, the tragic, chrome-skinned herald of Galactus.

But The Fantastic Four: First Steps is flipping the script, introducing Shalla-Bal, the female version of the character from Marvel Comics canon. Garner talked about her experience of being cast in the film and what was going through her mind:

“No, I met up with Matt, 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 continued, saying that she thought it would be good just to meet with director Matt Shakman, regardless of what happened:

“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.”

Even after the meeting, Garner wasn’t entirely sure she landed the gig. The conversation with director Matt Shakman veered into some pretty wild territory.

“He wasn’t telling me a whole bunch about the movie, but we were talking a lot about the 1960s. Our meeting went all over the place, and I thought I wasn’t actually going to get the part because the meeting was all over the place.”

She went on to say:

“ I was like, ‘I don’t know how he will hire me for this job.’ I mean, we were talking about communism, brutalist architecture, all this stuff. And then they were like, ‘You got it.’ I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ So I think that we vibed, but you never know, basically, is what I’m saying.”

Now that the trailer is out, fans finally got their first look at Garner’s shimmering Shalla-Bal. In the film, she arrives on Earth with the ominous message that Galactus is coming. And not even Pedro Pascal’s Mister Fantastic has a solution.

As for where her Silver Surfer stands in all this? Garner says it’s complicated:

“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. 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.”

The Fantastic Four: First Steps hits theaters on July 25th. Whether Garner’s Silver Surfer ends up friend or foe, one thing’s for sure, she’s sure to have a lengthy future in the MCU. I mean, you can’t introduced a character like Silver Surfer and then ditch it after one movie.