Ahead of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, star Grace Caroline Currey shared her experience with The Direct on becoming a superhero for the DC Comics movie.
For those that didn’t notice the interesting change to the Shazam Family this time around, unlike the rest of her cast mates, Currey was able to play both versions of the character—the young and the super.
Originally, Michelle Borth was the actress in the super suit after Mary Bloomfield said the magical word. However, that’s not the case in the sequel.
As for why, that remains a mystery. But it was an experience the actress behind Mary, aka Lady Shazam, enjoyed.
Grace Caroline Currey on Becoming Lady Shazam
In an exclusive interview with The Direct’s Russ Milheim, Shazam! Fury of the Gods actress Grace Caroline Currey, who portrays Mary Bloomfield, spoke on becoming a superhero for the upcoming sequel—and getting to wear a super suit this time around.
When asked why she kept her form in both young and super form, unlike everyone else in the family, the actress kept any possible answers close to her heart.
However, she described the experience as “really, really unique and special:”
“Well, I do retain my appearance. I also am quite a bit more glammed up in my super [form], so I don’t know how much of my appearance really changes. But yeah, I got to play my human form and my super-powered form, which is really, really unique and special, since I’m the only one who gets to do that. And because I do that, I get to be with the kid cast, as well as the adult cast, and I think it’s kind of a neat situation for the audience subconsciously, because you have a common thread, right? Mary’s there the whole time, through and through.”
Currey specifically noted “the contrast of working with the kids and their adult forms” was “just so fun:”
“... And in a way I think… mentally, you can have a link of, ‘Okay, these kids and these adults, they’re the same people and this is the same group,’ which– it was just so fun to have the contrast of working with the kids and their adult forms, because the adults are so silly. If anything, sometimes they’re sillier than the kids are.”
She exclaimed that “everyone wants to be in a superhero suit” and how it was funny when her younger cast mates saw her suited up:
“Well, I mean, everyone wants to be in a superhero suit. I think it was a funny thing when I would be on set in my superhero suit and the kids saw me for the first time in the suit. It was kind of funny, it was funny for them to go, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re a superhero. Wow, Grace. Okay, look at you go.’ But no, I mean, gosh, we had so much to do on this set.”
In the original 2019 movie, Michelle Borth portrayed the superhero version of Mary. But did Currey get to talk with her before taking over those duties?
The actress shared that “she left a really sweet comment” on her announcement on Instagram and that the two did talk plenty while working on the first film:
“Yeah, she was so sweet and… when I made the announcement on Instagram, she left a really sweet comment. And she was so wonderful on the first one. We had conversations about, ‘Who is Mary?’ And she wanted to be mindful, since I kind of established Mary in her human form, she wanted to be mindful of what direction I was going with Mary, and what is her behavior, so that when she was in the adult form and she was caring for that version, she carried through what I kind of established in the human form.”
She elaborated on how the adults of the Shazam family really had to “bring the essence of the kids” in their performances—something she worked with Borth to bring to life:
“Because with the adults, they’ve got to try to bring the essence of the kids and really make sure they do that, because they’re adults, they’re no longer the kids. So you’ve got to bring that mystery in. But yeah, she was so lovely and I felt so considered by her on the first one, on just, her asking me what I wanted to do with the character and what she should do with it in the superhero form.”
When asked how her suit compares to the character’s in the first film, Currey admitted that she didn’t know much about the original getup but noted how a challenge in the first film was that whoever was in Mary’s outfit had to wear a skirt in Toronto’s freezing winters:
“…I don’t actually know. I don’t know how [the first film’s] suit felt or how it operated. I know that the challenge with the first one is we were in Toronto, and it was winter, and the adult cast was doing night shoots. And the Mary suit is not great for winter, when you know, the skirt, and it was short-sleeved.
When it came to her new duds in Fury of the Gods, she admitted that getting her own suit designed was “a once-in-a-lifetime experience:”
“I mean, what a once-in-a-lifetime experience that not many people get to have, where they designed the suit considering my body, and me, and what I brought to the character. And I love that it’s got kind of a turtleneck situation, because I’m in so many turtlenecks in the first movie. It’s very Mary. It’s very studious to have the little collar.”
She went on to elaborate on the process of creating her new getup and the “dance” they did while filming:
“But yeah, the suit itself and the craftsmanship that went into designing the panels of the skirts and the belt. I had so many fittings where they just tweaked each part of it to get it to where it needs to be. And you know, they 3D-scan your body, so that each part fits seamlessly and the cape was super heavy. So, kind of figuring out how to be on set all day with the heavy cape, I’d get a routine of un-clicking the cape from my suit and handing it off to costumes, and then clicking right back in when it was time to shoot, and it was kind of like a dance. We had a dance going and I was like, ‘Okay, we’re coming off set, here comes the cape.’”
The Question Behind Mary Shazam
Many fans probably haven’t let go of a key question: is there an explanation for how Mary keeps her form when switching since Billy Batson doesn’t?
Though, it’s worth noting that in Black Adam, Dwayne Johnson’s anti-hero also used the same magic word, yet he was still himself on both sides. Though, there was the added muscle mass, of course.
Hopefully, the movie does get around to giving audiences a reason.
Fingers crossed that any new lore crosses over into James Gunn’s new DCU. After all, Currey seems passionate about bringing Mary to life—no need to cut her journey short.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods hits theaters on Friday, March 17.
