The following contains spoilers for Moon Knight, Episode 5, "Asylum," now streaming on Disney+.
Moon Knight's Antonia Salib didn't realize she was auditioning for the Hippo Goddess Taweret until she met with the show's director.
"[The character] was a complete surprise. I knew I was auditioning for Marvel Studios and I knew it was for a lead — an Egyptian woman," she said to Marvel.com. "They kind of gave me a fake name, and they had a dummy script. It was only once I was about to meet the director, and the casting team, they just mentioned, 'By the way, you're going to be a CGI hippo.' I was like 'OK, sounds great, let's do it!'"
Taweret is an Ennead and the Egyptian goddess of women and children. In Moon Knight, she intercepts Mark and Steven to help them travel through the Duat and arrive at the Field of Reeds. She appeared in the final seconds of Episode 4, "The Tomb," and had a more prominent role in Episode 5, "Asylum."
Salib provides the voice and motion capture performance for Taweret. She recalled the experience saying, "I wore these huge platform shoes…they were [supposed] to be hippo feet." The costume further included, "...This gorgeous scarab, and hieroglyphs carved into my costume. It was kind of a big breastplate that I wore around my neck. And I had several layers of feathers that plumed out."
"She's a very fashionable goddess," Salib said. "[I had] these brilliant bracelets, and it was just beautiful, all gold. The joy of having this incredible costume, and these beautiful sets, was just that it really helped elevate me to this godly hippo status so that I rise to the role."
The past two episodes of Moon Knight have Marc and Steven explore their psyches and confront past traumas, and also hinted at a third personality lurking dormant within Marc Spector. Fans of the Marvel comic have identified this tertiary persona as Jake Lockley, a more brutal and violent identity than the mercenary himself.
Moon Knight has one episode remaining and reports say it will be the shortest of the series, with no second season announced at this time. Star Oscar Isaac has expressed interest in confronting his arch-nemesis Bushman in a later MCU project, saying, "Yeah, I mean, look, the Bushman saga, that whole thing was pretty amazing." The character in question was name-dropped in "The Tomb."
Moon Knight is currently streaming on Disney+, with the season finale set to air on Wednesday.
Source: Marvel.com