Gwyneth Paltrow isn’t the only one who was in the dark about their role in a Spider-Man film — although, in this case, it wasn’t actually Cobie Smulders’ fault. The actress shared how she had no idea about her character’s major Spider-Man: Far From Home twist until about a week before it came out, and that a little movie magic was used to set up the big reveal.
Spider-Man: Far From Home ended with two shocking post-credits scenes — one of which showed how Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Maria Hill (Smulders) had been Skrulls in disguise throughout the entire film.
It signified the major turn that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is set to take in Phase Four, with Nick now stationed on a Skrull spaceship and Maria’s location unknown. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige previously told Gizmodo that the reveal helped explain why Nick Fury was able to be fooled by Mysterio, since he wasn’t really himself. But it doesn’t mean the performances themselves were impacted by the twist ending. At least, not for Smulders.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Smulders revealed that the post-credits twist was “added” without her knowledge, and she had no idea her character was actually Soren, a Skrull character, during the film. She said her and Jackson’s driving sequence used for the post-credits moment was from another scene that had been cut from the film, and Feige didn’t tell her about the twist until a week before the movie came out.
“It was added. I don’t know if it was necessarily at the eleventh hour, I don’t know when they thought of it. It was a surprise to me,” she said. “I bumped into Kevin Feige at a party and he said, ‘I gotta tell you something about what’s happening.’ I was excited, but I was also confused. I asked, ‘Well, where is she? What’s she up to?’”
Smulders went on to add that the reason her character seemed more stiff than in previous films wasn’t because she was knowingly playing Soren, but because she imagined Maria as “just over it” after the events of Infinity War and Endgame. Of course, the big question is whether Maria has been a Skrull just for this one film, or for most of the series so far. Smulders said she doesn’t know what Marvel has planned, but in her eyes… the answer is no.
“Anything is possible. They could change it to be that way, but in my mind: no. I don’t know where she is, but my hope is that she’s on vacation somewhere. In this world, she’s probably just on some other mission,” she said.
Spider-Man: Far From Home is currently in theatres.