When Marvel Studios releases Captain Marvel this week, you can expect audiences to have their full attention on the title character as she lights up the screen. However, there’s one particular character that might steal the show: an orange cat named Goose. But don’t let his appearance fool you — Goose is actually a flerken, a mighty and powerful alien that just happens to look like a feline.

Geeks of Doom was invited to attend the Captain Marvel press conference, where Brie Larson (Captain Marvel), Lashana Lynch (Maria Rambeau), Jude Law (Yon Rogg), Gemma Chan (Doctor Minerva), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), and Clark Gregg (Phil Coulson) talked about what it was like to work with a “snack-oriented” cat and his three other stunt doubles, as well as letting a cat do their thing while filming, and how the cats demanded respect. Check out what they all had to say here below.

Working with a cat may not be easy for an actor who isn’t exactly an animal person. “The question I am going to answer: no, I am not a cat person,” Jackson said. “But I am also not a dog, bird, or fish person either. I just don’t engage with pets.”

After all the jokes got out of the way, Jackson talked about working with Reggie, who plays Goose The Cat, and what his motivation was. “Reggie is like most animals they bring to the set who have been trained to do this, that, or the other, they are snack-oriented,” Jackson said. “Give him something to eat, he shows up. You give him something to eat, you talk soft and nice to him, you give him something to eat again, they love you. So it works out. There were actually four cats, but Reggie did the majority – heavy lifting most of the time.”

While Jackson was rather calm about working with the four cats, he quickly pointed to Larson, who he claimed had more issues working with the cat than he did. “Okay, not personally,” Larson joked. “I’m seriously allergic to them. It was not like diva, we couldn’t work together, don’t sabotage me, guys.”

“We didn’t hang out between shots,” Jackson said. “Nobody was like, ‘Hey, let’s carry Reggie around.’ We gave them back to the people that owned them. And sent him back to his own trailer.”

“Just to be clear, the other three cats were like Reggie’s stunt doubles,” co-director Anna Boden clarified.

“Oh yeah, so it was Gonzo, Rizzo, Archie,” Larson said.

Working with animals can prove to be difficult considering their unpredictability and likelihood of going off script. But working with a real-live one, as opposed to CGI, also brings in a bit of authenticity to the film, because we get to see them move and react just as any animal would.

“It was something about a cat to do what he normally does,” Boden said. “It was part of the struggle actually, to have a very well-trained, very well-directable cat on the screen is that sometimes we just wanted him to do the random thing we wanted him to do, like lick his paw or rub up against somebody. So some things we had to suggest to the trainer to let him do his thing for a while because there is something about the spontaneity of what an animal can do. I feel like it was worth it. I am not going to say Reggie did literally everything in the movie; for instance, you know, there’s a moment where he’s being held by the Skrull and he didn’t do that.”

When it came to figuring out who the Alpha Dog was on set, everyone acknowledged that it was Reggie. “The set got very, very quiet and respectful whenever Reggie came on,” Boden said. “Everyone else was like, ‘How come we don’t get this respect?'”

Captain Marvel opens in theaters on March 8, 2019.