I’ve got very high hopes that Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau is going to wind up being a major bright spot in Captain Marvel come March 8th. It was most certainly the case during the two-day set visit I participated in last summer.

I got the chance to join a group of journalists for a roundtable interview with Lynch and not only was she buzzing with enthusiasm for the project with an infectious energy, but she also teased the beautiful friendship between Maria and Carol Danvers (Brie Larson). They’re both fighter pilots and so close that Carol is actually an aunt of sorts to Maria’s daughter, Monica. Based on that description of their relationship, it probably goes without saying that when Maria loses Carol, she’s devastated. But as we all well know, Carol isn’t gone for good. She winds up fighting on the side of the Kree in the Kree Skrull war only to return to Earth a superhero.

You can find out how Maria fits into it all and so much more in the full set visit interview below. Captain Marvel is due in theaters on March 8th!

So what has Marvel said you're allowed to say about this?

LASHANA LYNCH: That I'm a part of Marvel now. [Laughs] That’s it! Thanks guys. It’s been great! [Laughs] That she is Maria Rambeau, the mother of Monica, who I know you all know and love like myself. She is a fighter pilot, very strong, very bold, very in control of herself. I'd say, in high demand with the industry that she's in. Her and Brie's character Carol Danvers are very close friends. They’re best friends, in fact. She had to go through a lot of grief when Carol disappeared and then suddenly she's back, and she has to kind of reverse that grief and make it work for this picking up of a friendship, which is kind of strange but ends up really beautifully. And she’s just an incredible character to play. It's nice to see someone on the page who doesn't yet have a fully fleshed personality who you can then inject wherever you want to, and that’s quite a treat for a Marvel character, you know? 

How long has it been since Carol disappeared or whatever happened to her?

LYNCH: Oh, I don't know if I'm allowed … a long time, a really long time, enough for me to come out of denial and then think that maybe she is alive, and then no actually she isn’t, yet years have gone by now and she definitely isn't alive; do you know what I mean? Enough for her to go through that cycle.

You're in a unique position to almost create a character in a world where most of these characters around you are icons. Especially creating a black woman character in Marvel outside of Black Panther. What's that been like for you as a process?

LYNCH: It’s firstly a treat, because Black Panther I think just raised everyone's awareness to the fact that we just don't have any black superheroes and our younger generations aren't seeing enough of themselves. We’re not being represented, and Marvel took that responsibility and I think for the change in consciousness that’s happening in the black community right now and over the last couple of years, they definitely picked the right time to drop the movie. I think the time really was now. Whilst I would have loved maybe 10 years ago to have a Black Panther, the world may have rejected it because of social issues, which I guess now we're going backwards, so our social issues are even worse. But because of that, Black Panther needed to be that. Do you know what I mean?

So in creating Maria, it made me realize that the younger generation are gonna have what I didn't have as a kid, which is seeing themselves on screen. So this will be a classic film for the new generations to come, which is crazy. And also the new normal, which I can't wait to be. Do you know what I mean? So, I did an ABC and Shonda Rhimes series a few years ago called Still Star-Crossed, and I played Rosaline, who is mentioned in like a slither of a verse in Romeo and Juliet, and I got to characterize her from scratch. So I feel like I'm repeating the same kind of process in that I can just bring whatever I want, and the directors Anna [Boden] and Ryan [Fleck] are so cool that I was like, ‘Actually, I feel like she can be like this.’ And they're like, ‘Yeah. Of course!’ And I'm like, ‘Okay, well, also so she could be like that.’ [Laughs] And they're like, ‘Yeah!’ So, I've had free rein within reason, and it's been a very free and an exciting experience.

Within that close friendship, what’s their dynamic? How would you describe the way they are with each other?

LYNCH: They have a very dry humor together. You know when you love someone and you pretend like you hate them? They have that. A little bit of a slightly unlikely boisterous, yet very loving, deeply loving, caring sister love. They have a sisterhood about them that is really nice to see in a Marvel movie. Carol Danvers is someone who is an aunt to my child, like she is family and that's why her death takes such a big effect on her life because she actually is her life. They're in a male-orientated environment and industry. All they have is each other as female fighter pilots. So yeah, they're extremely close, extremely.

How much of their story are we going to see in the past when they're fighter pilots and how much are we going to see when she's Captain Marvel?

LYNCH: You do get touches of moments to see how happy they were before and how happy they made each other. And because of that, when she comes back, you see why it affected her so much. You see why her death was such a big deal. And imagining my character now being the only female fighter pilot, African American as well, in her Air Force base would have been hell. I don't actually remember what I was saying at the beginning [laughs], but from her going from working with someone and actually being that complete bum chums to being alone, and raising a child single handedly with the help of her parents is a hellish experience and I could relate to that as well with losing someone myself. It's hard. It’s just, it’s a lot, isn't it?

As far as your character, not only are you a black woman, you’re also a mother in the film and it’s very rare that we see mothers in superhero films, especially when they’re still alive. So what does that bring to Maria?

LYNCH: A strength. I would say that her being a fighter pilot along with a single mother is her superhero quality. That is absolutely her superpower. Being a single mother, especially a black single mother, having been grown by one and my grandmother, I know that there's just a certain type of strength that comes ancestrally that you wouldn't have been able to portray. There’s just a certain way we portray it in this film that isn't labored, but also was very much conveyed in - I actually don't even have the words for it. You know what I mean by nothing's labored? It's just, she's strong, she's bold, she's a black single mother, she doesn’t argue about it, she has raised an amazing child and now this child is probably gonna turn out to be a superhero because she's been raised by one. Do you know what I mean?

So it's not like where you’re like, ‘I’m a black woman, you know, and I’m a black mom …’

LYNCH: Absolutely not, and I think it would be unjust to convey a single black mother in Marvel. That doesn't need to be spoken of. We have representation now to hopefully not have to talk about representation in the future, so why do we then have to have a conversation in a film? We're already having it in the industry. We don't need to apologize or explain ourselves in the film. It just is what it is, and also to know that we're flipping a black single mother idea on its head and being like, ‘So, she's a fighter pilot and a black …’ ‘Yes!' I'm so glad she's a black single mother. She don't need a husband and she doesn't need a boyfriend and she doesn't actually need many males in their life because she’s only got one male that's probably the best one, that's her father. Everyone else has been the males at work who have given her a freaking hard time for just existing. So she's all right.

How does Maria reaction when Nick Fury enters?

LYNCH: Cooly. Literally. One thing I noticed when I read the script is that she doesn't flinch. She has stillness about her, which is so attractive in a woman and in a human being. I feel like because of her work, she just doesn't flinch. She really takes new experiences and just makes it work for her. There's some situations that she encounters on the way, throughout the film and she never argues, she never asks questions. A bit like me actually, when there's something new, she's goes, ‘Okay, yeah, this is an iPhone. Never seen an iPhone before. I can work it. Yep. Use the buttons, but I'll make it work. Don't need to ask questions.’ She just handles herself in a very professional and collected fashion that no one ever has to question her ability. And again, I think that comes from being an African American female fighter pilot in a white male orientated environment. So she had no choice but to be strong.

Just taking another step with black women portrayed in films; a lot of time we’re shown as being very strong, very independent. Sometimes they say there’s some vulnerability missing. Will we see some vulnerabilities? Is there another part of her that we’ll get to see that is very vulnerable or soft?

LYNCH: I think that the way that this story is told, in the time that it’s being told, because we're starting with Carol's entrance into the world as this new person, I wouldn't say that we necessarily see vulnerability, but we see tenderness, and I think that's warranted and it's enough for the relationship that she has with Carol. She almost has to remind Carol who she is, where she came from, what she represents, who's she's about, and the mark that she can now place on the world through this power that she's gained. So for me at this moment in time, I think it's nice to see tenderness, love, care, and handling grief in a very complicated way. That's nice. I wouldn't say that with where she was in her life right now, and with how she's had to just take charge of the situation she's faced with in the movie, that I don't know whether you use softness ...

Tenderness, I think is …

LYNCH: Yeah, I think anything less than that would have been - she just doesn't need it in the - you’ll see! [Laughs] She just doesn't need to.

Would it be fair to say that she and Carol are yin and yang?

LYNCH: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Did I say absolutely?

Can you talk about the influence of the 90s setting and if that's had an effect on your performance?

LYNCH: Yes! For the sake of the audio, I'm shaking my shoulders right now because 90s for me is music. I'm an 80s baby, 90s child, so I went straight back to the rhythm of the 90s and I think that’s placed my head right back in there. And the fashion as well, although, you know, it's not like we're out partying everyday, so we're not getting to do the like, door knockers and all that stuff. Although I would have loved that. I ramble so much I didn’t remember what I was saying …

The 90s.

LYNCH: Yeah, 90s was amazing. [Laughs]

Are there any 90s touchstones that you've latched onto? Maria's favorite songs, anything like that?

LYNCH: She's definitely an R&B girl. She’s definitely like a Jade, SWV, 702, Keith Sweat …

Janet Jackson.

LYNCH: Oh my gosh. Oh yeah, we had a conversation. I'm not saying that. Yeah, we’ve talked about Janet and, yeah, just all the artists of the 90s.

So Maria is doing her thing on Earth, Carol comes back, she also brings with her all these crazy things like aliens and superpowers, so how does Maria react to that?

LYNCH: Sarcastically. Fully Sarcastically. She’s like, ‘You’re just out here with these powers. Sure, ok. It’s just meant to be okay and just normal to me? Okay, sure.’ That is how she reacts. Like, I'm just frozen in time because the last memory I have of you is so fond and so normal and so graceful that now you have a different like shell of strength that is great, but you need to also remember that you're a human being, but I don't quite know how to do that for you yet. So yeah, very sarcastically, humorously, but also takes to it very quickly. And one thing that Carol needs that Maria gives her is understanding. I can't empathize with the fact that you have powers, because I can’t … but I know what it feels like to feel lost, and trying to regain yourself after having a child, and feeling like I've lost a part of myself but gained another part of myself. I'm trying to find that balance in my mind. So she just uses her different parts of her life to understand where she's coming from.

Do you get some major action? I assume in the air, but do you also get to do some fighting, physical stuff?

LYNCH: Bob? His name is not Bob. [Laughs] There is action. Guys, I'm really comfortable and free. I don't know. It's a lot to censor myself

Do you get to work with the cat?

LYNCH: Do I get to wear a hat?

Do you get to work with the cat?

LYNCH: Do I get to work with the cat? You know there's a cat? Sure. Ok.

You can talk about the cat.

LYNCH: Sure! Ok! Fully about the cat?

Not fully. [Laughter] You can say that it’s not fully a cat.

LYNCH: So it’s not fully a cat. It's a cat, but a mysterious cat - in a hat, because you mentioned the hat, but you didn't actually say ‘hat.’ [Laughs] Okay, so the cat does things that we didn't expect for it to do, and it's very surprising, and it could happen at random times. Yeah, so do I interact with the cat in the hat? [Laughs] … yeah, I do, although I don't hold the cat, but I'm around it a lot. And I have a hat in my back pocket. [Laughs]

Captain Marvel hits theaters nationwide on March 8th. For more of my set visit coverage, check out the links below:

• Will ‘Captain Marvel’ Plant the Seeds for ‘Secret Invasion’ in the MCU?
• ‘Captain Marvel’ Will Incorporate the Kree Supreme Intelligence
• ‘Captain Marvel’: 28 Things to Know About the Marvel Cinematic Universe Prequel
• ‘Captain Marvel’ Directors on Influences from ‘RoboCop’ to ‘The Conversation’