When a Marvel character cameos in another character’s movie, Marvel fans get excited. But when one of music’s biggest superstars does the same thing? The world gets excited. That’s what happens on this week’s episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law when Grammy-award winning rapper and icon Megan Thee Stallion makes a surprise appearance. But the role wasn’t always Stallion’s, because the She-Hulk team never even thought it possible.
In the new She-Hulk episode, there’s a storyline about a former colleague of Jen who’s suing his ex-girlfriend for fraud. The girlfriend is a shape-shifting Asgardian elf who led the lawyer believed she was Megan Thee Stallion. The rapper appears in a few quick clips used as evidence, in one hilarious pay off shot, and then in a fun end credits sequences. (Read our full recap here.)
“When we wrote the script, all we knew was we needed to have a female celebrity who was very famous, very successful, and very beautiful. But we didn’t know if it was going to be an actress, or a model, or a musician,” head writer Jessica Gao told Entertainment Weekly. “And depending on who it was, we knew we’d probably have to tweak the story a little bit to fit whoever we ended up casting.”
Several names were thrown around but it was co-star Jameela Jamil who mentioned the music superstar, since the pair previously worked together on a show called Legendary. “Jameela one day floated the idea of Megan,” Gao said. “And the moment she said that, and the moment we realised that that could be a possibility, we were like, ‘Stop everything. That’s it. The conversation’s done. We only care about Megan now. And if Megan will do it, then that settles it.’”
Turns out, getting the rapper wasn’t too difficult. She was apparently already a big fan of Marvel and superheroes — and before they knew it, Megan Thee Stallion was on the set of She-Hulk. One problem though: She-Hulk herself, Tatiana Maslany, was the musician’s biggest fan and didn’t have a scene with her. That’s where the unrelated (but hilarious) end-credits scene came to be.
“Tatiana really wanted a scene with Megan and we saw how fun that energy would be and how it would be a missed opportunity not to have them on screen together,” director Kat Coiro told EW. “And we also learned that She-Hulk’s a great twerker, which was a surprise to all of us.”
In fact, the filmmakers knew that dancing with Stallion would be such a big deal for the mega fan, they didn’t tell Maslany about the scene they’d written until only two days before filming. “[Gao’s] like, ‘I don’t think we would get any filming done if you were aware that this is what was going to happen,’” Maslany said. “Because I would pass out. It was a dream. She’s such an amazing person. She’s so game for just playing.”
Will Megan Thee Stallion keep playing in the MCU? It seems unlikely, but her appearing at all is already that. Check her out in the latest episode of She-Hulk on Disney+.
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