James Gunn teases that there’s an “unannounced actor” in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3

Marvel Studios is generally very good at keeping secret character appearances under wraps, at least until footage leaks early and everyone finds out the entire plot of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness ahead of time, but it does occasionally screw up and let the entire cast of Thor: Love And Thunder get photographed during an official Movie Friends Hangout at a rugby game in Australia, spoiling the fact that Russell Crowe is in the film (we later learned that he’s playing Zeus).

Another upcoming Marvel movie recently had a Movie Friends Hangout of its own (via Deadline), but now everyone’s too smart to let a couple of photographs spoil their big surprises. We’re talking about Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, which recently wrapped filming, with director James Gunn tweeting a photo of the cast having drinks together. Unfortunately, Gunn is too Twitter-savvy to tweet something that might get him in trouble, so he made a point to only post a photo that includes Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Chris Pratt, Pom Klementieff, and Sean Gunn—i.e., all of the people that we already knew would be in the movie (Sean Gunn, the director’s brother, plays the on-set stand-in of Rocket Raccoon).

Gunn then explained that Zoe Saldaña was also at their Movie Friends Hangout, but the only picture he had of her included “an unannounced actor.” (He tweeted this with a photo of her and Jennifer Holland, who we assume is not that he unannounced actor, because that would be too obvious.) That means there is some mysterious actor in Guardians 3 who is important enough to keep secret and important enough to be invited to a Movie Friends Hangout alongside the rest of the main cast.

Obviously we have no idea who it could be, unless someone does some CSI: Cyber magic on the photo and finds the reflection of Unannounced Actor in James Gunn’s glasses or something. This does give us an excuse to mention that Peacemaker’s Chukwudi Iwuji is in Guardians 3 and isn’t in this photo, but Gunn knows we know he’s in the movie, so that’s probably not who he’s talking about. (We also probably know who Iwuji is playing, thanks to some set photos that also feature the Guardians in their Annihilation: Conquest-era outfits, which is extremely cool).

But who is Unannounced Actor?! We don’t know, and—if Gunn continues to be as careful with this as he was with his Movie Friends Hangout pics—we might not know until the movie comes out next May.