Zoe Saldana Wants To Explore 'Bad Gamora' In Next Guardians Movie
This could spell bad news for the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Zoe Saldana, whose time-displaced Gamora was left in a very strange place at the conclusion of Avengers: Endgame, told a crowd at ACE Comic-Con in Seattle that she's totally down to explore the bad side of the character — if that's the course that Marvel's powers that be want to take. (via CBR)
You'll recall that during the events of Avengers: Infinity War, Gamora was sacrificed by her adopted father Thanos, so that the Mad Titan could collect the Soul Stone and continue his single-minded quest to wipe out half of all life in the universe. Gamora's death was treated with utmost gravity, and it appeared to be permanent — and in a way, it was.
During the Avengers' time heist in Avengers: Endgame, however, the team made what seemed like a crucial blunder during James Rhodes and Nebula's trip back to the Morag of 2014 to retrieve the Power Stone. While their effort was successful, Nebula's neural implant linked with its counterpart in the 2014 version of her, alerting the past version of Thanos to the time-traveling shenanigans (and the fact that he had eventually succeeded in his mission). He uses 2014 Nebula as a mole, sending her to the present to activate the Avengers' time machine and bring him, his warship, his minions, and 2014 Gamora to the team's compound right after all of the dusted heroes are resurrected by Bruce Banner. A titanic melee, you may remember, ensues.
While present-day Nebula was able to convince 2014 Gamora to betray Thanos during all of the chaos, the fact remains that this version of the character never met Peter Quill, never joined the Guardians of the Galaxy, and never found herself part of a loving surrogate family — meaning that, while she obviously has some innate goodness, she's still highly mistrustful of others, prone to looking out for herself, and among the deadliest warriors in the universe. While Saldana claimed not to know what Marvel and writer/director James Gunn have planned for Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, she did imply that she found the idea of exploring "bad" Gamora to be rather intriguing, as it would give her a lot to play with as an actor.
"The technical answer is, it all depends on what Marvel and James Gunn desire to do with the Guardians and with Gamora's fate," Saldana told the Comic-Con crowd. "There's a part of me that wants her to go back, find her way back to the Guardians, but there's also a part of me that wants to explore a bad Gamora."
She continued to explain that while Gamora's prowess as a ruthless warrior was hyped up plenty in the first film, the character was quickly won over to the side of right, which didn't give Saldana much of a chance to dig into her dark side. However, she conceded that at the end of the day, Gamora belongs with her family.
"I've never seen [her bad side], and she's, you know, she's considered the most lethal assassin, the most lethal woman in the galaxy, so I would want to see what that wrath looks like, also because it would just give me layers to sort of work on. But yeah, I want her to get back to the Guardians."
We can imagine Gunn getting a lot comic mileage out of Quill's frustration in having to win over Gamora yet again, as getting her to acknowledge her feelings wasn't exactly a piece of cake the first time. But, that old softie Star-Lord at least has the advantage of knowing that winning her heart is possible; perhaps telling her that hilarious story about how, at her request, he attempted to kill her to thwart Thanos' plan will do the trick. Or, maybe relating how he cold-cocked the Mad Titan when he found out he'd chucked "Gamora Prime" over a cliff to her doom will warm her up. (Yeah, probably not; Gamora will certainly immediately realize, as did everyone who saw Infinity War, that this was the absolute most boneheaded move possible.)
At any rate, we can hardly wait for Guardians 3, which — like all Marvel films, really — has been the subject of intense speculation on the part of the rumor mill. According to the word on the street, the flick will feature the all-powerful intergalactic entity known as the High Evolutionary, who may clue Rocket in to the secret of how he came to exist. Speaking of Rocket, he may also get his very own love interest in the form of Lylla, who in the comics is a sentient otter (and who, rumor has it, may be voiced by none other than Lady Gaga, reuniting her in singularly weird fashion with her A Star is Born co-star Bradley Cooper).
Hopefully, we'll get a few more details when Marvel makes their grand presentation at the D23 expo in August — but for now, we're just going to keep hanging around the rumor mill to see what else pops out. Guardians 3 does not yet have a release date, but production is expected to begin in 2021, after Gunn finishes up his work on The Suicide Squad for Warner Brothers and DC. We'll be jumping all over Guardians news as it breaks, and we'll keep you informed.