Although Noomi Rapace’s Dr. Elizabeth Shaw was one of the few survivors of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, the prequel to Alien (and predecessor to the upcoming Alien: Covenant), reports from the production have repeatedly claimed Rapace would not reprise her role for the sequel. Back in January, Scott told the press that Shaw wouldn’t appear in Alien: Covenant, which is set 10 years after the events of Prometheus, when a new crew of doomed astronauts stumble upon a paradise planet whose sole inhabitant is David, Michael Fassbender’s robot character from Prometheus. There had been some talk about Rapace “briefly” reprising her role, but then Scott’s claimed that she would not.

Maybe that was all a deliberate misdirection; Deadline now reports that Rapace is in the film, and her part may not be so small after all:

Sources say Rapace is in Australia and on the set to shoot weeks worth of scenes in Scott’s film, which brings back Fassbender’s robot character and has a cast that includes Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride and Demian Bichir. Info is on lockdown.

So how does Rapace’s Shaw fit in here? Are these flashback scenes? Does the movie begin with a prologue set immediately after Prometheus and then resume the action ten years later? Or does Rapace somehow survive all that time on this paradise? These are all valid routes, and there could be other possibilities. The truth will be revealed when Alien: Covenant opens in theaters on August 4, 2017.

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