Evangeline Lilly is Everything

Yes, the title is true. Evangeline Lilly is everything. She’s amazing as The Wasp so get your tickets on Fandango NOW. She’s an amazing advocate and we just didn’t get enough time with her. Thanks to Disney and Marvel for inviting me to the #AntManAndTheWasp press junket, my opinions are my own. If you don’t know who Evangeline Lilly is, she’s someone in Hollywood everyone should have in their corner. She’s a true champion for everyone!

Photo credit: Louise Manning Bishop / MomStart.com

Becoming The Wasp

If Marvel approached you and said, “Hey, we’d like for you to join the MCU as a super!” and you think “hmm no thanks.” Well, Evangeline acually felt that way. Here’s what she shared about joining the MCU and becoming The Wasp.

“When I first got approached about Ant-Man, my manager said, ‘They’re interested in you for this role. Would you be interested?’ It was like, ‘No, I don’t really want to do a superhero movie. That doesn’t appeal to me.’ Because I didn’t like superhero movies, because I’d never really seen Marvel’s superhero movies. He was like, ‘Hear me out, hear me out, hear me out. They’re gonna cast Paul Rudd in the lead.’ And I was like, ‘Hold the phone, wait, what? Paul Rudd’s gonna be a superhero? I’m in! Whatever they’re doing, it’s ridiculous, and I love it.’ It wasn’t as simple as that but it definitely was the thing that had me like, ‘Okay. I gotta go see what Marvel is doing’.”

Marvel Studios ANT-MAN AND THE WASP..L to R: Ant-Man/Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and The Wasp/Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly)..Photo: Film Frame..©Marvel Studios 2018

Preparing for the Role

When we think of superheroes we think of super buff men walking around in tights. Evangeline had other thoughts when preparing for the film. She has a lot of action scenes and shows amazing strength and dexerity, here’s what she shared:

“I actually spent way less time worrying about getting my body rock hard and developing visual muscles as I spent in front of a mirror with my stunt doubles, making sure that we didn’t just take a dude, and put him in a woman’s body. I didn’t want to send the message that in order to be powerful and strong and capable and tough, you have to be masculine, and macho, and a dude,” Evangeline said. “I wanted to show that we are strong because of our femininity, not in spite of it. I wanted to show that when Hope was Hope, and she was emotional and vulnerable and smiling and pleasant and happy and not like, just badass bitch. I wanted to show that when she was fighting, by incorporating grace and elegance and femininity into the fight—in the van, that out the window, back—it’s ballet. It’s ballet. Like no dude could do that, ’cause men can’t move that way, because they don’t have the flexibility, agility, or the petiteness to come out a back window and in a front window. They just couldn’t.”

Marvel Studios’ ANT-MAN AND THE WASP
The Wasp/Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly)
Photo: Film Frame
©Marvel Studios 2018

Childhood Superhero Inspiration

When asked about her childhood superhero inspirations, Lily mentioned the amazing Michelle Pfeiffer. As you can imagine having Pfeiffer join the cast as Janet Pym was really incredible for her. Here’s what she had to say about her:

“Partly because it’s Michelle Pfeiffer in a skin-tight leather costume, owning it and being fierce as shit. But, also, I think it was because there wasn’t a lot to choose from. There just weren’t very many female superheroes. It was mostly male superheroes.”

It was very sweet moment when she told us about meeting Pfeiffer too, “As an actor—and maybe you guys experience this as journalists now and meeting actors—is that you can be obsessed with someone on the screen, and then you meet them, and they just destroy it for you. And you’re just like, ‘I wish I’d never met you’,” Evangeline shared about how she feels sometimes meeting other actors. “I’m like, ‘I want you to be perfect,’ And that’s impossible. Who can live up to that? Michelle can. She can. She’s perfect, there are no flaws. She’s nice. She’s generous. She’s smart. She’s funny. She’s intelligent. She’s considerate. She’s talented, and of course, she is the hottest 60-year-old you’re ever gonna meet. And so playing her daughter was an incredible honor. Also, I had to just bite my tongue, ’cause every day, I wanted to just be like, ‘Can you be my mentor?‘”

The Ladies of the MCU

Evangeline Lily is such a class act, I really can’t say enough about her. When she talked to us about The Wasp being the newest female superhero, she quickly reminded us about the rest of the amazing ladies in the MCU. “There have been female superheroes in the MCU the whole time, and they’re amazing, and they’re strong, and kickass, and all of those things,” says Lilly. “We know we’ve made some progress, and that’s great, but we’re still not equal, and that’s clear by the fact that you’ve made 20 movies, and never had a female in the title. So, this is a big moment, and it is a big deal, and I don’t want to downplay it. I want to celebrate it and be excited about it. I had a moment recently where my seven-year old son was pretending to be The Wasp, for a little boy to pretend to be a female superhero, this is no small thing.”