Brie Larson required a stunt double when filming scenes with Goose for Marvel’s The Marvels due to her allergies. Speaking with Total Film, animal trainer Jo Vaughan explained how they went about filming scenes with Goose given Larson’s allergies to cats.
“We would have one of us standing in a [green or blue] suit while doing the action with the cat,” Vaughan said. “We had a three-month training period. I read through the script, and marked down all the actions that the cat needed to do. These cats go onto set knowing everything that they’re going to do. When we come to shoot, we break it down day-by-day. The day before we will prep what we’re going to do the next day so it’s fresh in their mind.”
Goose, who is actually an alien known as a Flerken but takes the appearance of a cat, debuted in 2019’s Captain Marvel. Goose originally belonged to Mar-Vell (Annette Bening); however, she ended up in Carol Danvers’ (Larson) hands following the death of her own. While Goose is responsible for permanently blinding Nick Fury’s (Samuel L. Jackson) left eye, Fury still took Goose in after Carol left to help the Skrulls find a home.
Nemo and Tango: Two cats playing one Flerken
According to Vaughan, Goose is played by two different cats, Nemo and Tango, in The Marvels.
“Nemo was better at running and jumping,” Vaughan explained. “Tango was the hero face of Goose. Whenever we did close-ups, wherever possible, it would always be Tango. The naughtiest thing one of them did happened when we were on one of the sets where the ground was quite gravelly. We were all ready to go and it was just a giant cat-litter box. He didn’t go to the toilet on set, but he came out and just started rolling around in it straight away.”
The Marvels is directed by Nia DaCosta, who also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Megan McDonnell and Elissa Karasik. Along with Larson and Jackson, the film stars Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, and Zawe Ashton as Dar-Benn.
The Marvels releases theatrically in the United States on November 10, 2023.
