Shazam! Fury of the Gods star Helen Mirren spilled the beans about who co-star Rachel Zegler will be portraying in the sequel film during a recent interview.
Mirren made the big reveal while discussing whether her character Hespera is a hero or villain in the film, telling The Associated Press, "I'm not going to tell you the answer to that. You're going to have to ascertain for yourself."
"I'm a member of three goddesses: Lucy Liu as Kalypso and the third goddess played by Rachel Zegler, who will be a huge star in a very short space of time," the actor continued. "So there are three of us together, and that was really a great experience because it's so infrequent that you get to spend a whole of a movie with two other women. So often you're the only woman in the cast. Here we were a trio, and that was great. I loved it."
Zegler seemed to confirm the casting when she reposted Mirren's interview on her own Twitter account with the caption, "y'all…. my bag is empty……. i swear i had a cat in here………"
Fans got their first look at Mirren and Liu in costume as Hespera and Kalypso, respectively, in behind-the-scenes footage shared during the 2021 DC FanDome event. At the time, it had not yet been revealed Zegler would be portraying the third daughter of Atlas. While the Daughters of Atlas do not have a DC Comics counterpart, they do have a basis in real-world Greek mythology. The goddesses will serve as foes to Billy Batson/Shazam in the film.
Mirren's co-star Zachary Levi also recently clarified how old Billy Batson will be in the sequel film, saying during an interview at DC FanDome China, "I think in the first [Billy] was 15 years old or something like that so, you know [I was] trying to be very specific about, well what is it to play a 15-year-old foster kid. And then now, this one, he's a few years older, he's 17, and there's a big difference in that, you know. In fact, you know, in those years, they're very formative growth years. A 15-year-old kid is much different than a 17-year-old kid in some respects, so I just tried to evolve that as best I could, you know, as I stepped into this."
Shazam: Fury of the Gods officially wrapped filming back in August, when director David B. Sandberg posted a photo of a clapperboard on Twitter with the caption, "And that's a wrap!"
Zegler is best known for being cast as Maria Vasquez in Steven Spielberg's upcoming film adaptation of West Side Story, which is out Dec. 10. Shazam: Fury of the Gods is set to be released on June 2, 2023.
Source: The Associated Press, Twitter