Julia Garner reacts to ‘Fantastic Four’ Silver Surfer gender backlash

Julia Garner is responding to criticism of her role in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

The Ozark actress, who plays the Silver Surfer in the upcoming Marvel Studios sci-fi adventure, offered her reaction to critics who’ve objected to her being cast as the Silver Surfer, an alien character whom some fans think should be male.

“Oh, well, you know,” she told the BBC on the red carpet at the film’s London premiere on Thursday. “I was like, ‘I’m just gonna still do my job.'”

Garner also noted that she’s playing Shalla-Bal, an iteration of the Silver Surfer who has always been female in the comics, as opposed to Norrin Radd, the better-known male version of the character who was portrayed by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. “It’s Shalla-Bal, so it’s different,” the actress said.

Garner also told the outlet that she was glad to hear that audiences responded positively to her new film’s first trailer. “I was just happy that people are resonating with it, just like any other project,” she said. “I’m grateful to be at this dance, to be completely honest with you.”

At the same event, Garner reacted to her vocal performance as First Steps‘ Silver Surfer inspiring a Tiktok trend. “I was just acting and prepping,” she told Entertainment Tonightexplaining that she didn’t anticipate the clip going viral. “To be honest, I don’t even have a TikTok, so my friends were sending me all these TikToks, and I couldn’t even open it. So I’m just happy people are liking it.”

Garner talked to Entertainment Weekly in April about meeting with First Steps director Matt Shakman to discuss her character. “I was confused because I was like, ‘Wait, isn’t the Silver Surfer a man?’ I was just like, ‘Okay, well, I’ll play anything,'” she recalled, laughing. “I was a very big fan of Matt’s, so there was already, in my mind, like, ‘I should probably meet with Matt Shakman because he’s a very smart director and I love his work.’ And then he was explaining to me that it’s actually Shalla-Bal and that whole thing.”

The actress added that her character’s allegiance in the movie isn’t immediately obvious — she’s the herald of the planet-eating villain Galactus (Ralph Ineson), but she doesn’t necessarily endorse his world-ending actions.

“There’s this mystery about her, and there’s this sense of this ambiguous energy going on of whether she’s good or not,” Garner explained. “Does she stand with her boss, or is she just doing what she’s told? She has this mysterious energy about her, and slowly that mystery will get solved with the audience throughout watching it.”

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Garner also expressed interest in reprising the role in a spinoff movie. “A hundred percent, I would love to do that,” she said. “The Silver Surfer is such a cool character, and I feel like it’s so rare to be presented with any sort of mystery in this day and age. So any kind of energy like that on screen, I know I want to see that, so that would be awesome if that happened.”