Marvel Studios(LOS ANGELES) — Ant-Man and The Wasp flies into theaters this weekend, and it’s already making history as the first film in the past decade of Marvel movies to feature a female superhero in the title role. Evangeline Lilly, who plays that heroine, The Wasp, tells ABC Radio she understands the importance of the role.
“I did feel the burden of the fact that she is the first titled character in the MCU, and that means a lot to me,” said Lilly, who played The Wasp’s alter-ego Hope Van Dyne in the original Ant-Man. “I’ve always cared about the characters that I represent on screen being a representation of how I see women.”
Lilly said she especially felt the pressure when she helped design The Wasp’s suit.
“I really was kind of passionate to find what I felt would be my comfortable balance,” she says, “between honoring this fantasy that we create in the superhero world while also honoring myself as a woman, honoring my own body, honoring my own modesty, and presenting her as somebody who would be believably strong, capable, fierce, threatening and modern.”
Michelle Pfeiffer joins the cast this time around, playing Janet Van Dyne, The Wasp’s mother. Lilly says it was great getting to work with the three-time Oscar nominee.
“She was smart and she was funny and she was so likable and generous and kind and just everything you would want her to be,” Lilly says. “And yes, she is that hot in real life.”
Ant-Man and The Wasp is now in theaters.
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