When it was first announced last October that 13 Reasons Why star Katherine Langford had been cast in Avengers: Endgame, fans quickly began speculating about what her role might be. But when the film debuted less than two weeks ago, they were puzzled: where was she? No matter how hard anyone looked, it seemed Langford was nowhere to be found in the film. What’s more, the character she had been intended to play had never been reported either. Now, however, we finally have some answers—and from the sound of it, directors Joe and Anthony Russo made the right call in nixing her cameo, which test audiences deemed confusing.
The brothers discussed Langford’s planned appearance during a spoiler special on MTV’s Happy Sad Confused podcast with host Josh Horowitz. Apparently, Langford was going to play the older version of Tony’s daughter, Morgan (Lexi Rabe); her cameo would have occurred right after that climactic snap of Tony’s fingers. “There was an idea that we had that Tony was gonna go into the metaphysical way station that Thanos goes into when he snapped his fingers,” Joe Russo explained on the podcast, referring to the vision Thanos has in Avengers: Infinity War—featuring the child version of his daughter Gamora—after erasing half of the living creatures in the universe. “And that there was going to be a future version of his daughter in that way station . . . We showed it to a test audience, and it was really confusing for them.”
Joe also clarified further: “The intention was that his future daughter—’cause these are [Infinity] stones we’re dealing with, so it’s magic—his future daughter forgave him, and sort of gave him peace to go. And the idea felt resonant. But it was just too many ideas in an overly complicated movie.”
“What we realized about it was we didn’t feel an emotional association with the adult version of his daughter,” Anthony Russo added. “It wasn’t ringing to us and resonating with us on an emotional level, which is why we moved away from it.”
Leading up to the film’s debut, fans and critics had plenty of ideas about who Langford might play—with some even speculating she might lead the next generation of Marvel superheroes. Instead, it seems her role would have been pretty minor, and her presence brief. Truthfully, from the sound of it, the Russos made the right call in trimming that particular moment from their already very long film. After all, the film already gave Tony its meatiest emotional arc, and Robert Downey Jr. some of his heftiest material yet. The film even found subtle ways to pay tribute to his character, and how he enabled the Marvel Cinematic Universe to happen—plus a lavish funeral. Sometimes, the hardest choice an artist can make is to know when to say “when”—and if Langford’s appearance confused audiences to boot, that’s all the more evidence to support this particular decision.
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