Tasmanian-born actress Rachael Taylor has been announced as the newest cast member to join Netflix and Marvel's forthcoming web series AKA Jessica Jones, with the Aussie thespian lined up to step into the boots of comics character Hellcat for the show.
Audiences may recognise Taylor from her work in the first Transformers film (2007), or possibly local productions such as Cedar Boys (2009), Red Dog (2011) and Any Questions For Ben? (2012), while you may also have noticed her as Dr Lucy Fields on Grey's Anatomy a few years ago. She was cast to lead short-lived ABC horror 666 Park Avenue in 2012, as well as the equally fleeting Charlie's Angels reboot back in 2011.
In AKA Jessica Jones, Taylor will pay Patricia "Patsy"/"Trish" Walker, aka Hellcat — a comics character who has actually been around since the 1940s, though she started out as kind of a kitsch addition to a rom-com-style book rather than the ass-kicking superheroine she would become in consequent decades. Walker will fill the BFF role for the titular Jones (Krysten Ritter), who beats back superheroism-induced PTSD by opening her own detective agency.
AKA Jessica Jones is the second of four planned series leading up to big crossover event The Defenders, after Daredevil and before Luke Cage and Iron Fist. It will also star David Tennant as the mysterious Kilgrave, Mike Colter as love interest and eventual standalone star Cage, and The Matrix alum Carrie-Anne Moss as the enigmatic Harper. It's set to start airing via Netflix later this year.
We can only hope that Taylor uses her experiences on the truly irredeemably woeful Man-Thing — another Marvel property made in the era when Marvel allowed other people to make their films — to help avoid any similar instances of cinematic train-wreckage.
Speaking of cinematic train-wreckage, here's the trailer for Man-Thing, just because you need to be aware of this movie.
