Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Confirms Why They Gender-Swapped Cosmo

For the duration of Cosmo’s existence within the Marvel Comics lore, the space-faring pup has been portrayed as a male character. With the character’s extended live-action debut in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, however, the character was gender-swapped and was instead played (via motion capture and voice) by breakout Borat 2 star Maria Bakalova. According to Guardians producer Simon Hatt, the change was in honor of Laika, a dog the Soviet Union sent to space in the 1950s.

“Cosmo is based on the dogs the Russians sent to space at the beginning of the Space Race,” Hatt says in the Marvel Studios Assembled episode based on Vol. 3. “I think one in particular was Laika, who was a female dog and that’s why we did the gender swap, it was in honor of Laika, the original dog that went to space and did not come back, sadly.”

According to James Gunn, it was a matter of when, not if, the character was going to appear at length after a cameo role in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

“I always wanted to pull in Cosmo, I just didn’t know how to do it. It just made sense that she would show up because we already knew Cosmo was in Knowhere from the first movie, so being able to have her become an actual character was important,” the director continues.

He adds, We actually did a pretty wide search for Cosmo and we auditioned a lot of different actors. [Maria Bakalova] is always just very sweet and very good natured, very open with her emotions, and very exuberant. She has that dog-like quality in her that we all love about dogs.

The official logline: “In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, our beloved band of misfits are settling into life on Knowhere. But it isn’t long before their lives are upended by the echoes of Rocket’s turbulent past. Peter Quill, still reeling from the loss of Gamora, must rally his team around him on a dangerous mission to save Rocket’s life — a mission that, if not completed successfully, could quite possibly lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them.”

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is now streaming Disney+ and available for purchase wherever movies are sold. Stay tuned to ComicBook.com for more updates on the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and James Gunn’s next big project as we learn it!