Linda Cardellini Is Joining A Very Exclusive Marvel Club

Linda Cardellini will be part of the cast of the Guardians of the Galaxy for the third and final installment of the trilogy. Director James Gunn posted this information on Tuesday (April 25), Cardellini is voicing an otter named Lylla. Joining her is Mikaela Mehrizi Hoover who voices a rabbit named Floor and musician Asim C voices a walrus named Teefs. Gunn said in his Instagram caption: "Together they’re perhaps the primary reason I needed to tell Rocket’s story and finish this trilogy. I love them all dearly."

In the below clip, Rocket is joined by his friends as they decide what they want their names to be. Cardellini gets the ball rolling, and the rest of the gang are in full support of her name choice. The minute-and-a-half snippet shows the four animals lying in separate enclosures. Their cages are bleak and otherwise empty, save for the hope the four animals share as they stare up at the ceiling, envisioning their future in “the new world.”

This isn't the first time the Dead To Me star has starred in a Marvel movie. She also plays Clint Barton's (Jeremy Renner) wife, Laura. As Laura, she is a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and mother of their three kids. She has always stuck by Clint's side as an Avenger. Her character most recently appeared in the Hawkeye series in 2021.

Reacting to the news on Twitter, fans were ecstatic to hear the news. Gunn wrote the screenplay for Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed where she starred as Velma. One fan wrote, "linda playing two mcu characters shes just that girl." Another said, "Couldn’t have been a better casting."

One fan hilariously asked, "DOES THIS MEAN HAWKEYE'S WIFE IS TURNED INTO AN OTTER??? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE OTHER AVENGERS????" Another swooned, "The world doesn't get enough Linda Cardellini, James Gun out here fixing that." One person said, "That double dipping queen."

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hits theaters on May 5. Watch the trailer below:

While a number of other actors have played more than one Marvel character in films, Cardellini is one of two who have played two characters in the MCU. The other is newly-minted Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh, who plays Ying Nan in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, but she also cameoed as Aleta Ogord in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. 

We recently reported that Kevin Bacon is going to play himself in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. It’s not his first time playing a character in a Marvel story. Which is weird. But actors playing more than one Marvel role is more common than you would think.

Why is that? Today, Marvel Studios is one of the most powerful studios in Hollywood, cranking out multiple hit films (and TV shows) each year. But years ago, Marvel was simply a comic book company, and they licensed their characters to various movie studios. Marvel Comics is the home of Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, the X-Men, Daredevil, the Punisher and the Hulk, among others. DC Comics, their main rival, is the home of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Shazam and Aquaman.

Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four live in the same comic book universe and frequently team up in the comics. But that couldn’t happen in the films. Spider-Man is a Sony property, and Fox had the film rights to the Fantastic Four. It gets complicated, but when Marvel Studios (which got bought out by Disney) launched, they had the rights to a lot of iconic characters, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Captain Marvel, the Black Widow and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

But Fox had the rights to the Fantastic Four and the X-Men (including Wolverine and Deadpool). Spider-Man, among other characters, was under the Sony umbrella (to this day, every Spider-Man appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe requires a deal between Sony and Disney). Further complicating things, prior to Disney+, Marvel’s movie and TV productions didn’t really work together. So, while Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and the Punisher all had shows on Netflix, they didn’t really interact with the characters in the Marvel films (even though they vaguely referenced events of the movies).

Plus, Marvel had some shows that aired on ABC: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter and The Inhumans. Those also reflected storylines from the films. But as with the Netflix properties, nothing that happened on those shows was ever referenced in a movie.

In October of 2019, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige became Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Entertainment. He now oversees all of the movie and tv projects. Also in 2019, Disney purchased 20th Centry Fox’s film studio. That’s why we’ve seen Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk/Kingpin in the MCU. Cox appeared as Murdock in 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home and more recently in the Disney+ show She-Hulk: Attorney At Law (as both Murdock and Daredevil!). D’Onofrio appeared in the 2021 Disney+ series Hawkeye. Meanwhile, 2022's Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness had cameos from characters from the Inhumans (Anson Mount’s Black Bolt), the X-Men (Patrick Stewart’s Professor Charles Xavier) and the Fantastic Four (John Krasinski played Reed Richards, although there’s no indication that he’ll play him in future films).

Here are a few actors who have taken advantage of Marvel’s previously splintered multiverse and got to play more than one Marvel character.