Guardians of the Galaxy director says Maltese actress may appear in a sequel

Though she narrowly missed making it to the final cut of The Guardians of the Galaxy – Marvel Studios’s latest blockbuster and the biggest box office hit of the summer, earning upwards of $500 million globally at the time of writing – Maltese-born actress Marama Corlett might just make it into one of the space-comedy’s inevitable sequels, director James Gunn has alluded on Instagram.

Though this hardly amounts to an official statement, Gunn expressed his regret at having to cut Corlett out of the film, and was clearly impressed enough with her talent to say he would be glad to have her back on board.

Corlett was set to appear as a ‘pit boss’ in a gambling scene roughly mid-way through the film, where the rag-tag protagonists enjoy some downtime before their companion Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) drunk-dials the film’s main antagonist Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) and lands his new friends into serious trouble.

Posting a behind-the scenes photo of in-costume Corlett with Bautista, Gunn said on Instagram: “One of the tough things about making a film is sometimes you have to cut performances from the film, not because there was anything wrong with the performance, but for time or plotting reasons.

Behind the scenes shot of Marama Corlett and Dave Bautista, posted on James Gunn's Instagram account

“Such was the case with @maramacorlett, who played the pit boss running the Orloni-F'saki table in the Boot of Jemiah. She was amazing, learning all of her lines in a foreign language we created. Although you can still see her in the film her part was drastically cut down because of pacing. However her character didn’t die, so who knows where the pit boss could show up again!”

This isn’t the first time Gunn publically lamented having to cut Corlett out of the film. During a podcast interview for Britain’s Empire Magazine, he confessed to not being at all sentimental about cutting material out of his films.

However, he added, “The only thing I regret is when I have to cut an actor out of a movie because of some factor other than their performance. That, to me, really sucks,” Gunn says, calling out to Corlett while explaining that he had to cut out her scene due to time limitations.

“One of them is this girl called Marama, who is one of my favourite people that I’ve met on set for this movie.”

Marama Corlett, a ballet dancer by training, made her feature film debut with a small part in The Devil’s Double (2011). She subsequently appeared in the first – and only – season on Sky One’s Sinbad TV series, which was filmed in Malta.

Based in London, Corlett can currently be seen in the Old Vic’s production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible – a critically-acclaimed show starring Richard Armitage (The Hobbit).

Read our review of Guardians of the Galaxy

Read our interview with Marama Corlett