With Aharon Keshales’ South of Heaven now playing in select theaters and available On-Demand and Digital, I recently caught up with Evangeline Lilly to talk about being part of the indie crime thriller where she stars opposite Jason Sudeikis. While I’ll have the full conversation online this weekend, today I wanted to share what she had to say about Marvel and the MCU.
If you didn’t know, director Peyton Reed is currently filming the next Ant-Man sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, in London and the cast is made up of Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer and they are reprising their roles of Scott Lang, Hope Van Dyne, and Janet Van Dyne, respectively. Joining them is Jonathan Majors as Marvel villain Kang the Conqueror.
In a bit of surprising news, Kevin Feige revealed Kathryn Newton (Big Little Lies, Freaky) would play Cassie Lang, Scott's daughter. Why this is a bit of interesting casting news is MCU fans have already met Cassie as a young girl (Abby Ryder Fortson) in Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp, and as a grown-up (Emma Furhmann) in Avengers: Endgame. Cassie was introduced as an adult when Scott (Rudd) emerged from the Quantum Realm years after Thanos snapped the Infinity Gauntlet in Avengers: Infinity War, making for an emotional reunion early in the movie. It's still unclear how the recasting will be explained in Quantumania but I’m sure it will make sense by the time the film ends.
Anyway, while Evangeline Lilly was very careful about saying anything about the Ant-Man 3 plot, she did praise screenwriter Jeff Loveness’ (Rick and Morty) script saying:
“I think he is phenomenal. I think he's one of the best writers we've ever had. I think he's got an incredible mastery of voice. So, on the page, I could hear all the characters, and I knew that he'd really kind of harnessed each person's unique personality. I just think that it's going to be really special. I actually think it has the chance to be the best one we've done yet.”
In addition, even though she revealed she hasn’t been able to keep up with everything Marvel has been releasing which includes her episode of What If…?, she did talk about her love of WandaVision and Loki. Regarding WandaVision, Lilly said:
“I think WandaVision was phenomenal, and I think it was probably the best they've ever represented a female character. It was so incredible to see her be so complicated and so flawed and yet so redeemable and so lovable, the way we have typically historically treated our male characters. I think it was an epic female protagonist story.”
With Loki, the thing she couldn’t believe was that Marvel introduced chaos theory.
“The science geek in me loves that element of how smart they are and how they tackle such enormous topics that most kind of fluff popcorn movies are not going to tackle. They tackled chaos theory. That's really brave and really bold and really cool.”
Watch what Evangeline Lilly had to say in the player above or you can read the transcript below. Look for our full conversation this weekend.
COLLIDER: As you can tell by certain things that are behind me, I am a little bit of a Marvel fan. And I really do want to ask you if you can tease anything about the Ant-Man movie that I believe you might be filming.
EVANGELINE LILLY: I can tease that I am currently filming Quantumania. And I can tease nothing else for you, lest I die.
Can I at least ask you, what was your reaction after reading the script?
LILLY: I would be happy to. I was so stoked on the script. Jeff Loveness is our new writer for the film. And we've never worked with him before. I think he is phenomenal. I think he's one of the best writers we've ever had. I think he's got an incredible mastery of voice. So on the page, I could hear all the characters, and I knew that he'd really kind of harnessed each person's unique personality. I just think that it's going to be really special. I think it's going to be really good. I actually think it has the chance to be the best one we've done yet.
I cannot wait. My last thing for you. Do you actually pay attention to all the other…
LILLY: No, I just love the genuine enthusiasm. I can feel it.
Oh yeah, I actually really care about this stuff. But I'm curious, do you actually watch all the other Marvel things, the animation? I know you did What If…? Are you watching all this, to sort of make sure that you're in the loop as you understand everything that's going on? Are you almost watching it now because you mentioned you have a son who is a fan. Are you now watching everything with your son and sort of taking it in through his eyes in a completely new way?
LILLY: A bit of both and a bit of neither. I have not seen all of it, and I do try. I see it as almost like homework. I need to know what's going on in the world. I need to understand when there's references made in scripts, I need to know what's going on. I'm also a fan of Marvel, as in I'm a fan of the filmmakers that are creating this incredible universe. I think they are the best superhero moviemakers I've ever witnessed. And I know that I'm not alone in that, so that's not a revolutionary thing to say, except that I don't actually like superhero movies. So coming from me, that's different. I think they're really smart. I think they're really, really, really good at what they do and it's why I wanted to get involved with this franchise.
I never had any desire to be in the superhero movie, but Marvel do it right. They do it really well. So I'm a fan. I think WandaVision was phenomenal, and I think it was probably the best they've ever represented a female character. It was so incredible to see her be so complicated and so flawed and yet so redeemable and so lovable, the way we have typically historically treated our male characters. I think it was an epic female protagonist story. I loved, loved the ending of the Loki TV show. They didn't fully have me till the end. I was like, "Okay. Okay, sure. Yeah. Okay. Good." But I wasn't like, "Oh my God, this an amazing show," until they got to the end. And I was like, "It's chaos theory. I love it. I love it. I love it."
The science geek in me loves that element of how smart they are and how they tackle such enormous topics that most kind of fluff popcorn movies are not going to tackle. They tackled chaos theory. That's really brave and really bold and really cool. So yeah, I don't watch them all. I still haven't seen my What If…? episode, which I'm dying to see, because I had so much fun making it, but I will. I'll catch up on it eventually. I still haven't seen Black Widow, but I will. I have intentions to. I haven't seen ... What's Anthony Mackie's show called?
Falcon and Winter Soldier.
LILLY: Yes. I haven't seen Falcon and Winter Soldier yet. I will. There are so many things. But I have definitely not seen them all. WandaVision and Loki are the only TV shows I've seen from Marvel.
I could just dig deep on this, but I'll just say that with Loki, I agree with you. That ending is amazing, because Jonathan Majors is telling them the truth, and it's just this great ... And he's so good in it. And he's telling them, "You might get someone a lot worse than me." You know what I mean. It's so good.
LILLY: It's so good. And the fact that when we explore the two sides to chaos theory, it's two sides of the same person, is so good. Because I don't know about you, but I have both those people in me. I mean, I have that constant battle inside of me, especially right now, with the way the world is today, of like, how much do we control, and how much do we need freedom? And where is that balance? And what does that look like? And what's more important, safety or freedom? And that's what they're tackling in this show. The fact that they're tackling it in 2021 post ... well, mid pandemic, is really brave and bold. And yeah, I dig it.
Look for my full interview with Evangeline Lilly this weekend.