The White Lotus cast member Carrie Coon turned down the opportunity to appear in Avengers: Endgame because Marvel refused to give her a raise, her husband revealed in an interview.
Coon, also known for her role in the most recent Ghostbusters films, portrayed villain Thanos’ henchman Proxima Midnight through voice and facial capture in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War.
However, she did not return for the follow-up, Avengers: Endgame, released in 2019. Her husband, actor and playwright Tracy Letts, spoke to The Big Picture podcast about her reasons for turning the film down.
“I believe (Marvel) went to her for the second one (Endgame), and they asked her to be in the second one,” he recalled. “And she said, ‘Well, the first one is the most successful movie ever made. Are you going to pay me any more money?’ And they said, ‘No. We’re not going to pay you any more money.’”
He continued: “She said, ‘Wow, you’re not going to pay me any more money, then I don’t think I’m going to do it’. And they said, ‘Well, you should feel yourself fortunate to be part of the Marvel Universe.’ So she declined… We would’ve made a bigger deal out of this, but it would have involved us watching the movies and we weren’t going to do that”.
Avengers: Endgame went on to make almost $2.8billion at the worldwide box office, becoming one of the most successful films of all time and a landmark in the superhero genre. A variant of Proxima Midnight returned in the film, although she did not have any lines and wasn’t played by Coon, although she did provide the voice of the character for TV show What If…?
The White Lotus actor is not the first person to criticise Marvel for low-ball money offers. In 2021, several comic book artists spoke out against the compensation payments many were receiving for films based on their work.