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Amanda Seyfried on turning down Gamora in the MCU: "I don’t regret anything"
Before Zoe Saldaña put on the green makeup, Amanda Seyfried was offered the role of Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy. She turned it down and, over a decade later, doesn't mind that fact
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A role in Disney's impossibly successful Marvel Cinematic Universe may sound like a dream come true for a young actor today; it's almost wild to think about a time when anyone would say no to being offered one. But that time did exist, at least for Amanda Seyfried, as the Mean Girls legend recently revealed that she once turned down the role of the Guardians of the Galaxy's Gamora. Even more surprising than this, though?
Years later, she still does not regret that decision.
Seyfried was speaking about the opportunity with Josh Horowitz, to whom she revealed her then-concerns about the movie's box office chances. Chatting on Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast, Seyfried said that she worried Guardians of the Galaxy would be "the first Marvel movie that bombs."
"I thought that because this was about a talking tree and a talking raccoon," said Seyfried, "that it would be Marvel’s first bomb and me and Chris Pratt would never work again."
In Seyfried's defense, we can see how playing a character that was largely unknown to the movie-going public was, at the time, a fairly big gamble for an actor.
"I was at a precarious moment in my career," explained the Jennifer's Body star, "and I didn’t want to suffer for the work."
To clarify: Seyfried isn't saying that she would have "suffer[ed]" working with Marvel Studio or director James Gunn. Another big part of the reason she said "no" to Gamora was the hours of makeup required to portray the green-skinned killer.
"Sitting there for four-and-a-half hours every morning seemed like it wasn’t going to be fun," she told Horowitz, "I had done some green screen stuff and it wasn’t my best or my cup of tea then."
We know now that the risks it took to play Gamora, from both a fan-service and prostethics perspective, The actor who would say yes where Seyfried said no, Zoe Saldaña, is a household name at this point, and has become one of the few actors to be a part of four billion-dollar-plus cinematic franchises (Avatar, the MCU, Fast & the Furious, and Star Trek, if you're wondering). But even with the 20/20 glasses that hindsight provides, Seyfried has no qualms about the choice she made.
"I was just being smart. It’s not brave," Seyfreid tells Horowitz. Then, later in the interview, "I don’t regret anything. I made that decision for myself. It was good for me then and it was good for me now."
Amanda Seyfried's narcotics thriller, Long Bright River, is streaming on Peacock now. In case you're wondering: No, her character is not green.
Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:
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