How did Natalie Portman appear in Avengers: Endgame without setting foot on the film set?
- The actress is seen reprising her role as astrophysicist Jane Foster in the box-office smash – yet all she had to do was record a little bit of dialogue
Natalie Portman didn’t have to set foot on the set of Avengers: Endgame to be a part of one of the biggest box-office hits of all time.
The actress reprised her role as astrophysicist Jane Foster – originally seen in the 2011 film Thor, and its sequel, Thor: The Dark World – very briefly in Avengers: Endgame, in a scene when the characters of Thor and Rocket go back in time to retrieve the Aether Infinity Stone.
The two Avengers’ time-travel journey brings them to Asgard at the same time Foster (Portman) is on the planet during the events of 2013’s Thor: The Dark World.
In one scene, we see Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) sneak past Loki (Tom Hiddleston) while he’s a prisoner in a cell.
Portman’s character has previously been infected with the Aether in Thor: The Dark World and we see a shot of Foster before Rocket gets the Aether out of her off camera.
Jeffrey Ford, a co-editor on Avengers: Endgame says both shots were from unused footage from Thor: The Dark World.
“The shot of Loki throwing his cup in the cell and Thor and Rocket sneaking past him in the background, that’s a piece of digital negative taken from the dailies of The Dark World that we repurposed,” Ford said.
“The same for the scene of Natalie Portman.”