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When it comes to keeping secrets and preventing spoilers from becoming public knowledge, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is basically the CIA of the entertainment industry. The only thing that Marvel stars don't seem to  be shy about or concerned about sharing is the very fact that Marvel will do anything and everything to keep things as concealed as possible, even if that means putting all of their employees on a gag order and sending out their stars to promote projects that they basically can't say anything about anyway. And while their plans for their feature films seem to be Marvel's highest priority, they're still exceptionally tight-lipped when it comes to their TV shows, and they are not big fans of any info getting out that they don't want getting out.

But while Marvel's eternal gag order seems to apply to their hit Netflix series Jessica Jones just as much as it does to any of their other projects, that doesn't mean that they can keep absolutely everything a secret! Jessica Jones has featured a lot of major players over the course of its two seasons so far, and you wouldn't believe what random, strange, and sometimes hilarious information is out there about the members of its cast. Some of it is what you might expect from anyone in Hollywood, some of it is completely out of left field, and some of it are things you wouldn't ever even think of. So, do you want to know some behind the scenes secrets about the cast of Jessica Jones?

Krysten Ritter Rode Cows When She Was a Kid

Some kids play soccer, some kids do dance, some kids ride horses, but apparently Krysten Ritter used to ride cows when she was a young girl. Ritter grew up on a farm in Shickashinny, Pennsylvania, and apparently was not allowed to ride horses when she was little. Apparently not one to be deterred from what she wanted, Ritter made do by riding one of the cows (named Jake) on her farm. But clearly a cow is a pretty apt substitute for a horse, especially for a kid who probably just wants to ride every large animal that they see, and being a cow rider is definitely an interesting anecdote to share at parties. In addition to riding bovines, Ritter also contributed a lot to the functioning of her family farm when she was a kid, and was given many chores to do, including caring for some of the cattle that she would later ride.

Carrie Anne Moss Used To Wait Tables

Like many actors and actresses in the entertainment business, Carrie Anne Moss used waiting tables as a way to hold on to a steady income while she was hoping to book some work as an actress. What makes Carrie Anne's situation slightly unusual, though, is that Moss started working in restaurants when she was only 14 years old, and she would pick up restaurant jobs in between her modelling and acting jobs before she really hit it big.

Most people imagine that "hitting it big" in Hollywood is just getting one big break and being on the road to success forevermore, but Moss, like many other people working in the entertainment industry, had to work her way up the ladder and had to find a way to support herself in the meantime.

But clearly all of that waiting was worth it in the end, and it seems unlikely Moss will ever have to worry about her employment prospects again.

Krysten Ritter Was Discovered In A Mall

Everyone loves a classic Hollywood story of some future star being discovered doing something unimaginably mundane, and Jessica Jones' lead star Krysten Ritter was lucky enough to be one of those strange true Hollywood stories.

Krysten grew up in rural Pennsylvania, but she was spotted at the mall with her mother by Elite Model Management when she was just 15 years old.

Initially, Ritter commuted from her home in Pennsylvania to modelling go sees and gigs in New York, but once she graduated from high school she moved to New York full time to pursue her modelling and acting career. Obviously being "discovered" is an incredible stroke of luck for anyone, but it's especially serendipitous for someone like Ritter, who had aspirations to become an actress or musician since she was a young girl. And while modelling was Krysten's foot in the door of the entertainment industry, ironically her school mates made fun of her appearance.

Carrie Anne Was In A TV Show Called Matrix

Carrie Anne Moss plays the role of the snakey lawyer Jeri Hogarth on Jessica Jones, but Carrie Anne's most recognizable role is undoubtedly as Trinity in the smash hit film series The Matrix.

While the film series The Matrix are what made Carrie Anne into an international star, it was actually the second time in her career where she starred in a project called Matrix.

In 1993, Carrie Anne starred as the female lead in a Canadian fantasy series called Matrix. The show only lasted for a short 13 episode season. However, when Moss hit it big with her role as Trinity there was some renewed interest in her first Matrix project. After the success of The Matrix the TV series Matrix was actually re-broadcast in Canada. The renewed interest in the TV show was brief, but it is definitely a strange coincidence that Moss played the lead female in two projects with the same name.

David Tennant Is Best Known For Playing Englishmen, But Is Actually From Scotland

Most people think of actor David Tennant as a British performer who is best known for his role as the tenth doctor in the legendary, long running British series Doctor Who. And despite the fact that Tennant's most recognizable role, as well as many of the other roles that the actor has played over the course of his career, have been playing English characters, Tennant is not in fact English. Tennant was actually born in Bathgate, Scotland, and was raised in Paisley, Scotland. David also attended the prestigious Scottish drama school the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, but obviously went on to pursue a career in UK entertainment and then in US and worldwide projects. It's no surprise that many people think he's English, though. Most of his highly recognizable roles have required an English accent, and the seasoned theater and voice actor clearly knows how to play an Englishman convincingly.

Krysten Is Also A Novelist

Krysten Ritter is obviously most recognizable and well known for her acting work. However, it seems that Ritter is a bit of a jack of all trades when it comes to performing, because she really enjoys music and writing as well.

Apparently Krysten's writing skills are nothing to sneeze at, as she actually published her very first novel in 2017.

The book is called Bonfire, and it is a mystery thriller novel about an environmental lawyer who returns to her small town home to investigate a scandal involving the major local business, and then gets pulled into another mystery that happened in the town years ago. And while being a successful actress presumably gave Ritter a leg up when it came to her writing aspirations, getting a fictional novel published is still no easy feat to achieve, even for someone with a recognizable name. Apparently her writing skills were enough to get her book out there, though.

Rachael Taylor Is Actually An Aussie

Rachael Taylor might be playing a fictional American icon by the name of Patsy Walker, but in real life Rachael is most definitely not American. Taylor was actually born and raised in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia, and got her start as an actress in a few different Australian productions before making the leap to the American entertainment industry. It's no great surprise that Rachael plays an all-American child star convincingly because a significant portion of her TV and movie roles over the years have required an American accent, but you can (and probably have) heard her very thick natural Australian accent in her appearance in Michael Bay's smash hit action film Transformers. Ironically, Taylor has characterized herself as a bad actor when she was young, but clearly practice makes perfect since her accent on Jessica Jones is virtually indistinguishable from a natural American accent. Or maybe she's just blending in with the other fake Americans on the show.

Eka Darville Is Also An Aussie

Because when it comes to Australians pretending to be Americans, it seems like the casting director of Jessica Jones certainly has a soft spot. In fact Eka Darville, who plays Jessica's neighbor Malcolm Ducasse in Jessica Jones, is also a native to Australia. Darville was born in Cairns, Queensland, but grew up in Byron Bay, New South Wales. And while faking an American accent believably is no easy feat, it's possible that Eka had a bit of a leg up on the competition because of his Canadian mother. Granted, Canada isn't America, but most Americans wouldn't be able to distinguish a Canadian accent from an American one, and growing up hearing a particular accent and dialect every day would surely make it easier to mimic. And it seems to have served him well, in addition to Jessica Jones Darville has been on other American projects like The Originals and Empire that both required an American accent.

And Wil Traval Is Too

And rounding out the squad of Aussies pretending to be Americans we have Wil Traval, who played Trish's boyfriend and the unhinged police officer Wil Simpson in season 1 of Jessica Jones (although he did have a brief appearance in season 2 as well). Traval was born and raised in Victoria, Australia, and then moved on to Sydney, Australia where he attended the National Institute of Dramatic Art. Clearly attending a drama school will give any actor a leg up on a variety of different accents they might have to perform for certain roles, and before appearing on Jessica Jones, Traval had plenty of practice with his American accent in other American television and film appearances. But Traval got his start in Australian cinema and TV and still takes the occasional job in his homeland, which presumably allows him to keep flexing that Australian accent muscle that he now rarely gets to use.

Mike Colter Gained Muscle To Play Luke Cage

Mike Colter certainly didn't look like a slouch before taking on an intense diet and fitness regimen to gain muscle for his role as Luke Cage, but when you look at his physique in comparison to his fellow defenders it's easy to see how much work he put into the role, and how much that work has really paid off. Colter obviously went on to lead his own Netflix series, Luke Cage, as well as becoming one of the leads in the Marvel superhero squad series The Defenders, but Mike made his debut as the character of Luke Cage on Jessica Jones. And adding some pounds to a six foot three inch tall frame is certainly easier than gaining weight for someone naturally smaller, but gaining 30 pounds of muscle is a crazy accomplishment for absolutely anyone. And luckily the physical transformation Colter went through made him look every inch the superhero he needed to be.

And Krysten Also Gained Muscle To Play Jessica

It's kind of insane to imagine that the super slim Krysten Ritter actually weighed even less than she does now before she started on Jessica Jones, but Ritter understandably decided to put on some serious muscle in order to play the supernaturally strong Jessica to her fullest ability. And given the fact that Ritter looks like she's quite naturally tall and lean, putting on a full 10 extra pounds of muscle is actually quite an impressive physical feat. It took Krysten two months of training before the beginning of the show's filming to make those gains, and while she's still undeniably petite, that additional strength and power probably made Jessica look like a more intimidating character as well as made any stunts that Krysten had to perform look more believable. The life of a superhero is not an easy one, but the life of pretending to be a superhero doesn't seem too easy either.

Rachael Taylor Was Miss Teen Tasmania

With a face like that, it's no surprise that Rachael Taylor became a successful pageant queen, but apparently Rachael is extremely embarrassed by her pageant girl past.

Winning the title of Miss Teen Tasmania was actually Taylor's first experience with any kind of high profile publicity, and one could even say that it set her on the path to becoming the successful actress and model she is today. However, it seems like she'd rather forget that particular origin story.

Her reasons for disliking that part of her past do make some sense, though. Taylor says that she doesn't think that the pageant world is a healthy environment for young girls and forces them to focus way too much on their physical beauty. It's kind of a surprise to hear that from someone who is so obviously physically beautiful, but it makes sense that the kind of intense pressure girls experience from pageants wouldn't make any teen feel great about themselves.

Rebecca De Mornay Speaks German

De Mornay might not sound like a German surname, but actress Rebecca de Mornay became fluent in German when her family relocated from northern California to Austria when she was young. In fact, de Mornay wasn't Rebecca's original surname. She was born Rebecca Pearch but had her name changed as a child when her mother married her stepfather, Richard de Mornay. Sadly, Richard passed away when Rebecca was still school aged, and his passing was the reason that her mother decided to move the family to the other side of the world. Rebecca's family spent time in England and Austria, and Rebecca ultimately wound up graduating from an Austrian high school summa cum laude. Obviously she came back to the states and began a successful film and TV career, but de Mornay says that she has never lost her fluency in German despite the fact that she left the country decades ago.

David Tennant Wanted To Be An Actor At Three

Most successful actors talk at length about the fact that they often aspired to become professional actors from a very young age. However, David Tennant seemed to have an unusually intense desire to act at an unusually young age.

Tennant has said that he had decided to become an actor by the time he was three years old, and apparently that decision never wavered.

Tennant was attending a drama school by the time he was sixteen years old, and was working as a professional actor pretty much immediately after his graduation. And in one particularly ironic moment, when he was attending Paisley Grammar School as a child, he once wrote an essay explaining that his greatest ambition in life was to play the role of Doctor Who. Of course that dream would ultimately come true, and Doctor Who would become what is probably Tennant's most recognizable gig.

Jessica Jones Is Rachael's Second Marvel Job

Rachael Taylor's most high profile entry in her Marvel Cinematic Universe will most certainly be playing the role of Trish Walker in Jessica Jones and the other Netflix Marvel shows, but Jessica Jones wasn't actually her first foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

She actually made her official Marvel debut more than ten years ago, in the 2005 film adaptation of Marvel's comic Man-Thing.

Taylor played Teri Richards in the film about the murderous plant man spirit hybrid, but unfortunately the film was a critical and financial failure. It was originally slated for a possible direct to DVD or direct to TV release, but after the success of other superhero films like the Sam Raimi Spider-Man franchise the studio decided to give Man-Thing a cinematic feature film release. However, the plans for the film changed once again when the test audience response was so bad, so while the film did get a theatrical release in some countries, the plans for a US theatrical release were scrapped.

Tennant Wasn't David's Real Last Name

David Tennant, the actor formerly known as the tenth Doctor Who, is probably one of the UK's most successful and well known actors working today. But David Tennant isn't even the actor's given name. Tennant was actually born David John McDonald, in Bathgate, Scotland.

David had dreams of becoming an actor since he was a child, and was even noticed for his talent by actress Edith McArthur when he was only 11 years old, performing in one of his school plays.

When he was sixteen years old David auditioned to enroll at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and he became one of the youngest students to ever be accepted into the school. Tennant developed a lot of his skills through his education and through years of theater performances, but ultimately wound up finding success in film and television as well, and reportedly he actually dreamed of playing Doctor Who when he was a child.

He Had To Change His Name For The Screen Actors Guild

David Tennant was forced to change his name for the Screen Actors Guild–or as they call it in the UK, the Actor's Equity union. For those of you that are unaware, there is actually a rule within the unions for actors, television performers, and film performers that do not allow two members of the union to share the same name as their public name. Unsurprisingly, this causes a lot of problems for actors who were born with common names, and it's also no surprise that someone by the name of David McDonald was already a member of the union before David Tennant joined. And actors have different ways of dealing with this particular rule. Sometimes they'll just include their middle name or middle initial in their credited name so they can differentiate it from someone else, sometimes they'll use their middle name or some other family name in place of their last name, and sometimes they just pick a name they think is cool.

He Chose The Name Tennant Because It Was The Last Name of The Pet Shop Boys' Lead Singer

And, since David McDonald was still young when he first joined the Actor's Equity union, it's not a huge surprise that David just decided to take on a new name that he thought sounded cool. Tennant actually got the "Tennant" name from the super successful British synthpop duo the Pet Shop Boys, who have been at the top of the British music game since the early 1980s.

The lead singer of the Pet Shop Boys is named Neil Tennant, and apparently David saw his name in an English music magazine and decided that it would be his new moniker.

Ironically, David is now almost certainly the more recognizable Tennant in the entertainment industry. And what made David choose it? He simply liked the name, said that it seemed like a good name, and liked that there were a lot of consonants in it. One has to wonder what name he might have chosen had he decided to read a different magazine that day.

Callum Keith Rennie Didn't Appear On Film Until He Was 33

Even if you don't recognize Canadian actor Callum Keith Rennie's name, there's a good chance that you might recognize his face (especially if you're a Battlestar Galactica fan, since Rennie played the very memorable Leoben/cylon number 2 in the series). But either way, he's definitely a great example of the fact that it's never too late to follow your dreams. Callum didn't actually make his film and television acting debut until he was 33 years old, but once he started working it seems like he really never stopped. Apparently Rennie waited on pursuing his dreams of acting for so long because he developed a problem with drinking in his youth and didn't manage to get that addiction under control until he was 33. Rennie's character in Jessica Jones, Dr. Karl Malus, is actually not only responsible for Jessica developing her superpowers, but also gave her mother some superpower mojo and has been looking after her ever since.

Rebecca De Mornay Was Engaged To Musician Leonard Cohen

Actress Rebecca de Mornay (who plays Trish Walker's mom/Jessica's adoptive mom in the series) is really kind of a legend in her own right, after super memorable turns in movies like Risky Business, Backdraft, and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.

She had an incredibly serious relationship with the legendary Leonard Cohen, a musician, writer, and poet who is probably best known for writing the eternally covered song "Hallelujah."

And surprisingly, during the course of Rebecca's relationship with Leonard she actually produced one of his albums, The Future, which Cohen in turn dedicated to her. Cohen and de Mornay met in the mid 80s but didn't have a public relationship until the early 90s, and while they both publicly admitted their engagement it's unclear when that actually took place. And despite the breakup it appears there were no hard feelings, both Cohen and de Mornay had nothing but good things to say about each other and Rebecca said that the loss of Cohen in 2016 was like losing a limb.

Mike Colter's Brother Works For The Secret Service

I guess being a tough dude with some secrets runs in the family. Mike Colter played the role of Luke Cage, a guy who obviously has a lot of secrets from the rest of the world. And Colter might be employed by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one of the most notoriously strict companies when it comes to their stars sharing any important information about their upcoming projects with the rest of the world. But apparently his brother, Eddie Lee Colter Jr., was good enough at keeping secrets that he actually managed to parlay it into a pretty intimidating job. Keeping the secrets of the MCU is definitely some serious business, but that has still got to pale in comparison to working for a government organization that literally has the word "secret" in it's title. But to be fair, it's also no surprise that someone might feel a bit safer with Luke Cage's big bro looking out for them.

Hal Ozsan Was Born In Cyprus

Actor Hal Ozsan was a new addition to the Jessica Jones cast in season 2, and considering that we've already seen his relationship with Jessica's BFF Trish Walker end it seems safe to assume that there won't be a whole lot more going on with journalist Griffin Sinclair in the future (however, never count out the possibility of flashbacks, or a reunion with Trish). And while actor Hal Ozsan was raised in the UK so his accent in the TV show might actually be his natural one, that's not where Ozsan first started out his life. Ozsan was actually born in the tiny island country of Cyprus, an island in the east Mediterranean Sea that boasts a population of just over 1 million people. Hal spent the first three years of his life there before his family immigrated to the UK, and as of now, Ozsan is a legal citizen of both the UK and the US.

Carrie Anne's Comic Character Inspiration Was A Man

I'm sure that most of you noticed that Jessica Jones the TV show seems to be absolutely stuffed to the brim with awesome female characters, but that was a decision that was made by the actual show runners, not the creators of the comic books.

Melissa Rosenberg clearly wanted to go for a super powerful girl power lineup, so she and the rest of the JJ crew decided to gender swap a few male characters in the comics for some female ones in the series.

One of the most noticeable gender swaps is for Jeri Hogarth, who in the comic books was a male lawyer known as Jeryn Hogarth. He was a minor character in the comics, and after seeing how scary and tough Carrie Anne Moss was in the role it's really no surprise that they decided to make Jeryn into Jeri and make her into the most intimidating lady lawyer of all time.

Jim Carrey Was First Choice For Killgrave

David Tennant served up a pretty epic performance in seasons 1 and 2, first as Jessica's ultimate villain Zebediah Killgrave and then as the haunting guilt Jessica couldn't escape, but he wasn't actually the number one choice to play the part in the beginning. Comic and legendary zany man Jim Carrey was. It would be kind of strange to see someone like Carrey playing a character like Killgrave, especially since Jim has publicly expressed discomfort with taking violent roles lately, but it's also a completely understandable casting idea. Killgrave's character is anything but funny, but playing a character who is a completely unhinged abuser in a way that an audience will actually want to watch is a very difficult task, and seems like the kind of over the top ridiculousness that someone like Jim Carrey would excel at. All's well that ends well, though, because David Tennant certainly served us up a memorable character and performance.

Krysten Beat Out Teresa Palmer, Jessica De Gouw, and Alexandra Daddario For The Role

It's really no surprise that there would have been some pretty stiff competition for the first lead female superhero role in the Netflix Marvel universe, but after two seasons of Jessica Jones, it's also pretty hard to imagine anyone besides Krysten Ritter playing the titular character. In order to win the role of Jessica, Krysten had to beat out quite a few other women for the job.

Among the more recognizable names that also threw their hat in the ring to play Jessica are Australian actresses Teresa Palmer and Jessica De Gouw, and Percy Jackson alum Alexandra Daddario.

And surely those talented gals all put their best foot forward, but at this point it's pretty undeniable that Ritter was the best way to go for Jessica. Few actresses could embody the traumatized, sardonic Jessica in the way that Krysten Ritter has managed to, and she's more than equipped to go up against all of the other stars of the Netflix shows too.

References: imdb.com, wikipedia.com