Before Fantastic Four, Marvel's Silver Surfer Actress Was In A Much Different Comic Book Movie

Actress Julia Garner made her feature film debut in 2011, playing the role of Sarah in the deprogramming drama "Martha Marcy May Marlene." She quickly landed many additional film roles for her talent and her intensity, appearing in both gentle indie dramas (like "Electrick Children") and studio schlock (like "The Last Exorcism II"). In 2014, Garner already appeared in her ninth feature film, "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For," a sequel to the 2005 film "Sin City." She was rolling high, and would only continue to become more famous.

"Sin City," as many remember, was a highly stylized, near-animated film noir directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. It was based on Miller's 1991 comic of the same name, itself designed to be a film noir on steroids. It took the images and themes and stories of old pulp crime stories, and ratcheted up the sex and violence to a dizzying degree. The film adaptation attempted to capture the stark black-and-white-and-no-gray aesthetic of Miller's comics, just with live-action actors inserted. Only a few shots or characters were in color. The cast included Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Benicio del Toro, Jessica Alba, Carla Gugino, Clive Owen, Elijah Wood, and many others. It was an anthology film, featuring six segments that only occasionally intersect. They are all set in Basin City (not Las Vegas), a cesspool of sex and crime. Quentin Tarantino directed a single scene, as Rodriguez wanted his friend to try out these new-fangled digital cameras. Tarantino reportedly hated them, and went back to working with film. 

In 2014, weirdly long after the original, Rodriguez and Miller re-teamed to make "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For." The approach was the same, using mostly stark images lifted directly from Miller's comics, with live actors inserted. Garner played a character named Marcie in a two-part segment called "The Long Bad Night."

In "The Long Bad Night," Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Johnny, a boastful young gambler with perhaps a little too much confidence. He wins big at a local casino, and immediately snags a waitress, Marcie (Garner) to serve as his good luck charm. We know that Marcie is special, as she's in full color, with yellow hair, red lips, and blue eyes. Johnny is so good at playing cards, he manages to bankrupt a senator, Senator Roark (Powers Boothe), in a back-room, high-roller game. Naturally, this inspires the senator's ire, and puts the city's corrupt police force on his tail. Johnny is stalked and attacked in an alleyway, where Roark breaks his fingers and shoots him. Oh yes, and Johnny was secretly Roark's long-lost illegitimate son this whole time. And that was only the first part of the Long Bad Night. 

Sadly, things don't turn out too well for Marcie in the second part of the story. Johnny fixes himself up ... a tiny bit ... with the aid of a back-alley doctor. Because Marie was also at the back-room poker game, Johnny knew she would also be targeted by the senator. Sadly, Johnny arrives at Marcie's apartment to find that Roark had just decapitated her. In the universe of "Sin City," men are all violent and corrupt, women are repeatedly victimized, and justice is rarely meted out correctly. 

Garner's comic book debut merely led to more work. She appeared "The Americans" starting in 2015, and continued to appear in various indie films, honing her craft. In 2017, she became one of the lead characters in the celebrated drama "Ozark." She played the lead character in the 2019 drama "The Assistant," a film about the office assistant of an off-screen Harvey Weinstein-like sexual abuser. 2025 has already been a good year for the actress, as she appeared in Leigh Whannell's reboot "The Wolf Man," and played the Silver Surfer (coated in CGI) in "The Fantastic Four: First Steps." 

She will soon appear in Zach Cregger's horror film "Weapons."