For the most part, the octopus featured in Netflix’s Remarkably Bright Creatures movie—which began streaming today—is CGI.

“There was no way we were going to be able to train an octopus to do all the very specific blocking that we needed in the movie,” director Olivia Newman explained with a laugh, in a recent zoom interview with Decider. “We settled on creating a CGI version of Marcellus.”

But even though Marcellus the octopus is computer generated, he was designed after a real-life octopus named Agnetha, who lives at the Vancouver Aquarium. “[We used] footage of Agnetha interchangeably in the movie, with our CGI,” Newman explained.

Alongside co-writer John Whittington, Newman adapted the Remarkably Bright Creatures script from the best-selling 2022 novel by Shelby Van Pelt, about a lonely widow named Tova (played by Sally Field, also an executive producer on the film), who is still grappling with the death of her son, decades later. She finds comfort in speaking to giant octopus, Marcellus, at the aquarium where she works as a cleaning lady. Marcellus can’t speak back, but the audience hears his thoughts via a delightful voice-over narration provided by Alfred Molina.
Photo: Netflix
“We wanted [Marcellus] to be as photo real as possible,” Newmann told Decider, “so that we could also shoot a real giant Pacific octopus named Agnetha, who lives at the Vancouver Aquarium. What we did was we took hours of footage of Agnetha in her tank, so that we could study octopus behavior, and create an exact replica of Agnetha.”

When Decider spoke to Newman, the director wasn’t sure if Agnetha the octopus was still alive or not. “Unfortunately, giant Pacific octopus only live up to four years, if they’re lucky,” she explained.

Decider reached out to the Vancouver Aquarium to ask after Agnetha’s well-being, and we are happy to report that yes, Agnetha is still alive. She is three years old, and lives in the Pacific Canada Pavilion area of the aquarium.

The good folks at the Vancouver Aquarium were kind enough to pass along some updated photos of Agnetha.

Meet Agnetha, aka the real octopus that the Remarkably Bright Creatures octopus was modeled after.

Photo: Vancovuer Aquarium/Vanessa Volkommer.

Agnetha is 3 years old, and lives in the Pacific Canada Pavilion at the Vancovuer Aquarium.

Photo: Vancovuer Aquarium/Vanessa Volkommer

While the octopus in Remarkably Bright Creatures was mostly CGI, there were a few shots in the movie of the real Agnetha.

Photo: Vancovuer Aquarium/Vanessa Volkommer
“Agnetha does appear in the movie,” director Olivia Newman told Decider. “I won’t tell you what’s real and what CGI, because the goal was to not know!”

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Newman went on to say that there were a few puppets modeled after Agnetha built, too. One puppet matched the real Agnetha’s reddish color, to be used a lighting reference in a replica of her tank. Another puppet was made malleable and given some weight, to give stars Sally Field and Lewis Pullman and understanding of the weight and feel of an octopus. (There are several scenes in which are leads scoop up the mischievous octopus and return him to his tank.)

“But we always had to do takes with absolutely nothing in it,” Newman said, in order to give the VFX team room to do their thing in post. “That required a lot of imagination on the part of the actors, to picture what the octopus was doing. We would talk about it, describe what the blocking was. We would give them eye lines for how the octopus was moving, and where it was going. Then it was in the hands of our amazing actors to visualize it.”

So the next time you’re in Vancouver, stop by the aquarium and say hello to Agnetha! We can’t guarantee she’ll help you forge new meaningful connections in life, but it’s worth a shot.