At the end of Thor: Ragnarok [SPOILER ALERT], we saw Cate Blanchett’s Goddess of Death, Hela, seemingly perish amid the flames as Asgard was destroyed by fire demon Surtur. Though it seemed as though Thor’s plan to vanquish his sister – yes, Hela was revealed to be Thor’s secret older sister – succeeded, if we know anything about comic-book movies, it’s that death isn’t necessarily final.
Particularly now that Avengers: Infinity War has raised the stakes. There’s the small matter of Thanos and his Infinity Gauntlet giving the Mad Titan power over life and death… as well as time and, well, just about everything.
FANDOM chatted with Cate Blanchett and co-star Jack Black ahead of the release of their new film The House With a Clock in its Walls and asked Cate if she’d want to play Hela again.
“Sure,” she said.
As a god, and a very powerful one at that, there’s every reason to think there’s plenty of opportunity for Hela to return. She’s also a very popular villain among fans, and as Blanchett’s co-star Jack Black highlighted: “You never actually saw her die, you just saw her go down in a giant ball of flame.”
He’s quite right, and while Blanchett pointed out that “that looks pretty dead”, she did concede that “there’s always a way back” before adding “but I’m sure there’s always a way forward, who knows? I never say no to anything.”
Could Hela Team Up With Thanos?
In the comic books, Thanos’s plan to kill off half the population of the universe was motivated by his desire to woo Mistress Death. The character has been absent from his storyline in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but could there be a plan to reintroduce Goddess of Death, Hela, as an alternative potential love interest for Thanos? Or at the very least as a fearsome partner? Blanchett says that she’d like to see them team up.
“That would be good, yeah,” she says before suggesting that the two could become even closer than that. “[They could] mould into one. Think of the costume you could splice together between those two.”
Both Hela and Thanos do have some pretty ostentatious threads. But Blanchett suggested that, instead, perhaps Hela could make an about-turn should we see her again. She cited events in her new film as evidence to support her claim.
“I mean, Kyle MacLachlan plays a terrifying bad warlock [in The House With a Clock in its Walls] and it’s all about how magic can be used for bad or evil, and when someone hasn’t processed their pain, their good magic can very quickly turn evil,” she said. “So maybe Helen – Helen is not a great name for a baddie – but Hela could maybe turn nice, I don’t know.”
And reconcile with Thor?
“Maybe.”
Bring it, Marvel.
The House With a Clock in its Walls hits screens the US and UK on September 21, and Australia on September 20.