Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 might be a standalone installment in the increasingly complicated Multiverse Saga, but it’ll still see the unexpected comeback of an MCU veteran who last featured alongside the Guardians in Avengers: Endgame. The twist is, however, that they won’t be playing the same character we’ve always known them as in the Marvel universe because James Gunn has made them the latest cast-member lucky enough to play more than one Marvel Studios role.
After the release of a particularly tear-jerking new clip (make no mistake, this one is going to leave us bawling), the writer/director went and confirmed something fans have been wanting to know for ages: who is playing Rocket’s friend Lylla the Otter? Once upon a time, it was rumored that Joker: Folie à Deux‘s Lady Gaga had landed the part, but now we know for sure that Lylla’s voice is actually provided by Dead to Me icon Linda Cardellini.
Cardellini is of course more familiar to Marvel viewers as Laura Barton, wife of Clint, first appearing in Avengers: Age of Ultron, again in the aforementioned Endgame, and then most recently in Hawkeye. Her hiring as Lylla likely had nothing to do with her prior Marvel work as she and Gunn have been friends for a long time, having first worked together on the Gunn-scripted Scooby-Doo live-action films of the early 2000s, in which the actress played Velma.
Given her incredibly emotive performance in just this short clip, we’ve no doubt that Cardellini was the best person for the job, with the fun MCU crossover of her casting just being an additional perk to please MCU nerds. We’ll hear her full portrayal of Lylla when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 enters theaters from May 5.
