The movie is still almost a year away, but we’re still learning more about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. We already know who Star-Lord’s father is and why writer/director James Gunn picked that particular character. Now, we also know how one of the film’s villains, Ayesha, gets mixed up with the team.
At San Diego Comic-Con, we spoke with actress Elizabeth Debicki, who plays Ayesha in the film. The footage screened there suggests set up the lesser-known Marvel character as a huge force in the movie (the other being Taserface, a powerful Ravager) and we asked Debicki how those problems start. She was pretty vague but, just in case…
“Ayesha is this leader of the Sovereign people,” explained Debicki. “She enlists the Guardians to help her fight a sort of galactical beast. They’re this sort of ragtag bunch of people but they happen to be very good at getting rid of things and cleaning up the universe, in a way. So she enlists them and it’s all going swimmingly until it all turns very very sour. Let’s just say it goes from amiable to not-so-amiable quite quickly.”
In the footage screened at Comic-Con, there was a brief scene of Rocket Raccoon making fun of Ayesha and her people, so that may or may not play a role in the shift. And once Ayesha turns on the Guardians, it seems that’s where the story really gets rolling.
Elizabeth Debicki on stage at Comic Con. Image: Disney
The actress added that, after that moment, Ayesha has a very dynamic role in the film.
“The wonderful thing about James and the writing in the film is that every character has a really great arc,” she said. “And that’s why I really wanted to play her because she finishes in a very different place than where we first see her. She shifts a lot. How she looks kind of shifts, and I don’t want to give anything away.”
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opens in the US on 5 May 2017.