Captain Marvel's Goose Was Played By Four Cats

CBR

Captain Marvel's Goose Was Actually Played By Four Cats

By Brandon Zachary

Published Feb 28, 2019

The cast and crew of Captain Marvel the difficulties of sharing the set with the MCU's new breakout star: Goose the cat.

Captain Marvel introduces one of the most surprising breakout stars of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Goose the cat, who's attracted an impressive fan following even before the film's release. But while Hollywood is littered with horror stories about working with animals, the cast and crew of the Marvel Studios film adapted to having a feline on set. Actually, make that four felines.

And, as CBR learned during a press conference held in Los Angeles for Captain Marvel, some of the actors adjusted better than others.

When the subject eventually turned to the cat, the entire cast burst out laughing. "I thought that was going to be, like, question number three!" Jude Law said.

"I'm not a cat person," Samuel L. Jackson confessed. "I'm also not a dog, bird or fish person, either. I don't engage pets. Most people that bring animals to set have been trained to do this, that or another. [Reggie, the primary cat who plays Goose] is snack-oriented. If you give him something to eat and talk softly to him, give him something to eat again, they love you. We didn't hang out between shots. We gave him back to the people that owned [Reggie]."

"There were actually four cats," he continued. "But Reggie did the majority, he did most of the heavy lifting most of the time. She had more problems with him than I did."

She is star Brie Larson, who was quick to clarify that it was nothing person."I just have a severe allergy, to be clear. We weren't, like, divas [who] couldn't work together. I got in trouble because I ran, screaming 'Shake Shack!' right next to the cat. They were like 'Shh! The cat is working right now!' That was my one very unprofessional moment."

"To be clear," added co-director Anna Boden, "the other cats were more like Reggie's stunt doubles." So, yes, Reggie, Rizzo, Gonzo and Archie.

Boden addressed the struggles of having live cats on set, and why those were ultimately worth it. "There's something about getting a cat to just do what he normally does," she said. "It was part of the struggle actually, of having a very well-trained, very directable cat on screen. Sometimes we just wanted him to do the random thing a cat's going to do like lick his paw or rub up against somebody, and so sometimes we would kind of suggest to the trainer, 'Maybe just let him do his thing for a little while.' Because there's something about the spontaneity of what an animal can do and I feel like it was worth it. I'm not going to say Reggie did literally everything in the movie. For instance, there's a moment where he's being held by the scruff, and we did not do anything to Reggie."

Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, Captain Marvel stars Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Jude Law as Mar-Vell, Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, Lee Pace as Ronan the Accuser, Djimon Hounsou as Korath the Pursuer, Gemma Chan as Minn-Erva, Ben Mendelsohn as Talos and Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau. The film opens March 8.