Did you know Naomi Scott is in The Martian? No? I didn’t either - not until I started preparing for her episode of Collider Ladies Night and came across a clip of her discussing the movie on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Turns out, she had a small role in 2015 box office hit and Academy Award nominee, but the scene that would feature her most heavily wound up being cut from the film.
Things like that happen all the time, but one has to image it’d be a huge bummer to get cut from a Ridley Scott movie, especially considering The Martian was one of Scott’s first big Hollywood gigs. She’d go on to make a huge impression in 2017’s Power Rangers and wow the world in the live-action Aladdin movie, but appearing in both The 33 and The Martian in one year? That could have been an excited start to Scott’s run in the feature film realm.
If you’ve watched any episode of Collider Ladies Night, you probably know I do like talking about bumps in the road to put the focus on how filmmakers overcame them and, sure enough, Scott didn’t disappoint in that department. We began our Martian portion of the conversation by running through exactly what was cut from the movie. Here’s how she put it:
“There was one dialogue scene and then I was in scenes, but just there. So there was this one dialogue scene. It was this science jargon. Ridley Scott was behind this curtain and I was just, mate, I just choked. And do you know what? I think it’s so important to just talk about moments where you choke, because they really do inform your experiences and they really do force you to kind of reconcile whatever those insecurities that you have are and face them.”
As someone who often tries to remind herself there are no failures, only lessons, I very much appreciate the positive spin Scott puts on the experience now. But back then - and while working with Ridley Scott, nonetheless - it had to be tough. She continued:
“Anyone out there, in whatever field of work, and you think of that time that you wanted the ground to swallow you up, let me tell you, we’ve all been there. I’ve been there in front of Ridley Scott. [Laughs] I was choking. I couldn’t get these words out. I couldn’t get these jargon words out. And I literally remember thinking, genuinely in my head, ‘You know that phrase, I want the ground to swallow me up? I actually want the ground to swallow me up right now.’”
Ultimately though, Scott got there and gave Ridley Scott and the team usable footage. But scenes are cut from movies for loads of reasons and Scott suspects that, in the end, her big moment just wasn’t all that necessary:
“I mean, if they wanted to use it, they could have. I think it was probably a combination of the fact that they didn’t actually need it. However, the fact that I know I was so nervous and that I choked, I probably was like, in the back of my mind, ‘Yeah, I don’t know if I’m gonna make it into this movie.’”
Sure enough, she didn’t make the final cut and she didn’t find out until the cast and crew screening. Scott kept watching the movie, waiting for her big moment and then ultimately caught herself thinking, “Oh, okay. I’m not gonna be after the credits so, think I’m not in it.” Again, there might have been some disappointment at the time, but Scott is able to look back on the experience with a laugh. Here’s what she said when asked if it’s typical not to be warned when you’re cut from a film:
“I was just this little role. They didn’t care. Maybe if you’re the lead in something. I wouldn’t take that stuff too personally, do you know what I mean? I laughed it off. I came back to my mother-in-law - this is the best thing - I got back home, I went to hers because we were there and she opened the door and she went, ‘You’re an extra?’ Because literally in the movie, there’s one shot of me in this cap and I’m like this. It’s like one second!”
Scott had already emphasized the value of learning from challenges during our chat, but focusing on The Martian also led to a discussion of managing self-doubt and highlighting that everyone’s path in this industry is different, and that’s okay.
“But it was a fun time! I got to go to Budapest for a few days with my cousin, Tiff. It was fun. Again, you learn! But genuinely I was like, ‘Okay, what happened?’ And I realized, I didn’t think I deserved to be there. I still to this day have moments of complete and utter imposter syndrome. Just, ‘How did I get here? I didn’t go to drama school.’ By the way, these are not things that I necessarily believe and give credit to, but have been through that and often your mind does go back there. You just have to continuously forge a different kind of neural pathway in terms of what your mind goes to. But this idea of, I wasn’t on the inside. I felt like an outsider in that sense, and I didn’t grow up reading Shakespeare, I didn’t do theater, all of these things that just play on your mind in terms of, ‘Oh, that must mean I’m not a real actor.’ The more that you realize that, the more time you spend doing that, the less time you actually spend figuring out, learning and growing and actually becoming the artist that you want to become and not just the artist that you think you should be. ‘Oh, I should be like this person,’ or all these people you look up to and you think, ‘How do I get there?’ But just the version of yourself. Now more than ever, there is so much appetite for specificity. Not just specificity in terms of the content that we watch, but specificity in terms of journey of how you got there as a writer, actor, director. There’s no one way. Yours can be unique and lean into your uniqueness. But I have to tell myself that!”
Scott is spot on right there! “There’s no one way,” and because there’s no one way, a show like Collider Ladies Night can exist to highlight the uniquely personal experiences one goes through to achieve their dream. If you’re eager to hear more about Scott’s journey in Hollywood thus far, we’ve got you covered! Her full Ladies Night conversation will drop on Collider on Tuesday, March 6th. While you wait, be sure to check out Scott’s new audio/podcast series, Soft Voice, which also stars Bel Powley and Olivia Cooke. The first three episodes are now available wherever you prefer to listen to your podcasts.