When we first saw Evangeline Lilly on screen as Hope van Dyne in Ant-Man, she was fierce. Hope was a woman who was smart, confidence and witty as she beat up Scott during their training sessions. Ha!

Now in Ant-Man and The Wasp we get to see Hope fully embrace her role as The Wasp, with that same fierceness.

Note: Marvel Studios, Freeform & Disney Junior invited me on this all expense paid trip to Los Angeles for the Ant-Man and The Wasp Event. While I will share different events and activities during the trip, any personal views expressed are always 100% my own.


I love seeing a strong female on screen, so I was beyond excited to interview Evangeline Lilly about her role as The Wasp during my #AntManAndTheWaspEvent press junket trip to L.A. Listening to Evangeline share her thought about the impact of her role was just profound.

Being Inspired by Strong Female Superheroes

Evangeline Lilly: I used to fantasize about being Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. I was like obsessed with her. And partly because it's Michelle Pfeiffer in a skin-tight leather costume, owning it, and being fierce.

But, also, I think it was because there wasn't a lot to choose from, you know. There just weren't very many female superheroes. It was mostly male superheroes.

So, me and my sisters would sometimes pretend to be Spiderman or Batman or whoever else. And, you know, I had a moment recently where my seven-year old son was pretending to be The Wasp. And I still get goose bumps when I tell that story. It chokes me up, because that's a cultural shift, for a little boy to pretend to be a female superhero. This is no small thing.

Evangeline Lilly: And sometimes, I think -- we're making a mountain of a molehill, because there have been female superheroes in the MCU the whole time, and they're amazing, and strong, and kickass, and all of those things.

But I think what this moment in our culture is saying, is 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.

Working with Paul Rudd

Evangeline Lilly: It's like, everybody loves Paul Rudd. He's so love-able, and this is gonna sound maybe like not giving him enough credit, but I really mean this cause he's just so freaking talented, but my favorite thing about working with Paul is watching the movie.

Because I watch it and I fall in love with him all over again. I love the movie, because I love Paul, and I'm in a movie, therefore, that I love, you know?

Working with Michelle Pfeiffer

Evangeline Lilly: Oh, it was a dream, to work with Michelle. Because the weird thing is, an actor 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."

I'm like, "I want you to be perfect, you know?" And that's impossible. Who can live up to that? Michelle can. She can. She's perfect, like, there's 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 sixty-something or however old she is you're ever gonna meet.

And so playing her daughter was an incredible honor, and also, I had to just bite my tongue, 'cause every day, I wanted to just be like, "Can you be my mentor?"

Working with Michael Douglas

Evangeline Lilly: I was so astounded by him in the first film, because I was the opposite with him. I was kind of ignorant to him. Like I watched him in Romancing the Stone, and was like, "Cool. Great romance. He's cute." I was eight, or whatever I was, but I didn't keep up with his career. I just knew he was a big movie star.

So, when I took the job, I was like, "Great, Michael Douglas, big name, gonna help the film. It's gonna help our numbers." And then I started working with him and was like, "Oh. Whoa."

Evangeline Lilly: He's so good. He's such a charismatic, present, powerful human being that when he starts to perform, he just changes the molecules of the room. You're suddenly transported to the place you're pretending to be, and so when I read the script for the second film, and I found out that I was going to get an enormous amount of work with him, and that we would be super close and super tactile and loving and like, we were partners after the really difficult journey that we went through in the first film?

That was the thing that I was the most excited about, to get more screen time with Michael. And Michelle, of course.

Training for the Fight Scenes

Evangeline Lilly: I actually spent way less time worrying about getting my body rock hard and developing, you know, 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, strong, capable and tough, you have to be masculine, macho, and a dude.

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, vulnerable, smiling, pleasant and happy and not like, just badass bitch, you know.


Evangeline Lilly: I wanted to show that when she was fighting, by incorporating grace, elegance and femininity into the fight, 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. Let's examine how a woman could have an advantage over a man, physically, because she's a woman. Not because she figured out how to move like a man. And that was something that I was really passionate about.


Evangeline passion for highlighting how awesome female superheros can be in seen clear in ANT-MAN AND THE WASP. Make sure you see it in theaters everywhere on July 6th!



SYNOPSIS

From the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, a new chapter featuring heroes with the astonishing ability to shrink. In the aftermath of CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, Scott Lang grapples with the consequences of his choices as both a Super Hero and a father.

As he struggles to rebalance his home life with his responsibilities as Ant-Man, he’s confronted by Hope van Dyne and Dr. Hank Pym with an urgent new mission. Scott must once again put on the suit and learn to fight alongside the Wasp as the team works together to uncover secrets from the past.

Stars: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Pena, Walton Goggins, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Tip “T.I.” Harris, David Dastmalchian, Hannah John Kamen, Abby Ryder-Fortson, Randall Park, with Michelle Pfeiffer, with Laurence Fishburne and Michael Douglas.

Directed by: Peyton Reed

Marvel Studios' Ant-Man and The Wasp - Official Trailer #2


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