Okay, so this news isn’t even news, but I didn’t know until now and I’m totally bamboozled.
Comedian and actress Tig Notaro, whose previous Netflix credits include Star Trek Discovery, stars in Zack Snyder’s new zombie heist-’em-up as helicopter pilot Marianne Peters. If you’ve watched it, you’ll obviously remember her because – and this isn’t just my opinion, it’s an objective fact – she’s the best character in the entire movie. You don’t think so? You’re WRONG.
But she wasn’t in the movie, or even one of the cast when it was filmed in 2019. At the time, the helicopter pilot was Chris D’Elia. But in mid-2020, D’Elia was accused of sexual misconduct by “multiple” teen girls, so the director scrubbed his scenes out and replaced him with Notaro using green screens, CG, and probably some sort of emergency #metoo budget (that’s got to be a thing by now).
Snyder and the visual-effects team replicated the physical spaces and camera angles of the original scenes at a studio in Simi Valley, California, referencing the old footage on a monitor and using greened-out props, laser pointers, and tennis balls hanging from stands to approximate where Notaro should be looking.
According to Vulture, the only co-star who joined Notaro for those scenes was Ana de la Reguera (Maria Cruz, the mechanic). Other co-star Dave Bautista hasn’t ever even met her.
“What really bothers me, when I watch this film – it bothers me that I don’t know Tig,” he told Vulture in a subsequent interview. “I feel like I should know her. I want to meet her, and I want to hug her and tell her how amazing she was in the film. I’ve been able to do that with all my other co-stars, and I haven’t been able to do it with Tig because I haven’t met her yet. I think she’s amazing and is incredible in the film.”
I dunno how I missed it. My sister works in movie VFX, so I’m one of those smug, irritating assholes who tells everybody else in the room “actually, that’s CG” at every opportunity. Like Valentine the zombie tiger? Actually, that’s CG. And Henry Cavill’s beard in Mission: Impossible – Fallout? Actually, that’s CG too.
