Meagan Good Briefly Thought She Was Auditioning for a Shaquille O’Neal Movie Instead of ‘Shazam’

Actor Meagan Good accomplished her goal of starring in a superhero project when she was cast in the DC movie Shazam . But she was initially kept in the dark about the project when she was auditioning for the movie. Which was why she briefly confused Shazam for a cult-classic 90s superhero film.

Meagan Good once shared how she was cast in ‘Shazam’

Good’s casting in the first Shazam film may have come as a bit of a surprise. Like the movie’s titular superhero, Good’s character was ten-year-old Darla Dudley, who would gain the ability to turn into a super-powered adult. The chance to star in the superhero movie was a big step for Good, who hoped to nab an action role years prior to her casting.

“For me, again, I really wanted to get into the action space. I decided four or five years ago to make a conscious decision to transform my body , to start working out. Thirty-five was popping up, and I was like, ‘Alright, it’s time to change everything,’” she once told Comic Book Resources . “A big reason why is I didn’t see a lot of Black women in that space. I definitely didn’t see a lot of women of color in the space of the Marvel or DC Universe. So, I said in my mind, ‘I want to be in this universe, so I am going to transform my body.’ My thought was, ‘I just want little brown-skinned girls to be able to see themselves and to say, ‘Oh, I can be that, too. I can do that, too.’”

Good’s training eventually paid off in a surprising way. Going into Shazam , she had no idea she was trying out for an actual DC superhero movie. When she was finally told the movie she was auditioning for, she confused it for an old Shaquille O’Neal film.

“When I ended up getting Darla Dudley, I had no idea what I was auditioning for — like zero. I went in and pretended to be a 10-year-old, which was totally up my alley because I am very weird,” she said. “When I found out, two weeks later, that I got it, I was like, ‘What is it?’ They were like, Shazam . I was like, ‘With Shaquille O’Neal?’ They were like, ‘No, that’s Kazaam . This is Shazam .'”

But Good soon realized Shazam was exactly the kind of role she’d been waiting for.

“So, I went and researched it, and when I realized I was actually playing a 10-year-old, I was like, ‘Now, little girls really can see themselves as a superhero and really can look and say, ‘Yeah, I can do that.’ It’s been a fun character to play, to get my goofy side out, and to work with Faithe Herman, who is little Darla. In this next installment, I think I am 12 or 13 now,” Good said.

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Good managed to bring the kind of representation she wanted to see in superhero films with Shazam . But there were other surface-level aspects of playing Darla that she enjoyed. She actually seemed to like adopting her character’s 10-year-old personality as much as she enjoyed playing a superhero.

“I also love, because I definitely wanted to do the action and be kick-ass, but I love that I get to be a little girl. I love that I get to show the goofy side of myself because I don’t get to show that in most of the characters that I play, so it’s kind of like the best of two worlds,” Good once told Cinemablend .

As much as she enjoyed the stunts, however, there was one stunt that pushed the former Nickelodeon star to her mental and physical limit. And that was the flying.

“I will say, I don’t like being dropped. With that, I had to drop 90 feet or something. My heart was in my butt. It was terrifying, and it took 10 times. Once I got my body to stop shaking, I couldn’t get my face to stop doing the same. Eventually, we got it. That’s my only qualm, but I will do it every time,” she said.