The following contains spoilers for The Marvels, now playing in theaters.
One of the brightest stars in The Marvels is Kamala Khan, with fan-favorite actor Iman Vellani reprising her role after starring in the Disney+ original series Ms. Marvel. Whisked away on a cosmic adventure alongside Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau, Kamala reminds the heroes of their ideals while helping them save the day against an insidious Kree plot that threatens to upend the natural state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Inspired by her experiences, Kamala is ready to build a team of her own, leading her generation to defend the MCU.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, the MCU star Iman Vellani shared her behind-the-scenes experiences making The Marvels, revealed what writing the comic book series Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant taught her about the character, and teased the implications of the final scene of The Marvels and Kamala's place in the growing MCU.
CBR: Iman, I've been watching Samuel L Jackson ever since Jurassic Park. How was it getting to share action scenes and big dramatic scenes with him in The Marvels?
Iman Vellani: So cool! He's a very generous scene partner. He also genuinely loves Nick Fury, loves acting, [and] loves his job so much. He just ignited some crazy parts in me where I know I'm going to be happy with my career if I just follow Sam Jackson, listen to what he has to say, and listen to his advice. He's one of the few actors that still has this passion burning inside of him. He wants to keep working with new people, meeting new people, and exploring his characters. He's also very knowledgeable about Nick Fury. He keeps continuity with his character between movies from years ago.
I was very impressed. He's also just a wonderful human being. I was very scared and intimidated by him at the beginning, but the first time I met him, I literally hid behind our director instinctively. I didn't know where to be and how to be. He comes around and gives me the biggest bear hug --top five hugs I've ever received in my entire life -- and immediately, I felt welcomed and at home in his arms. It was great!
So much of The Marvels revolves around the rapport you have with Teyonah Parris and Brie Larson. Do you remember first sitting down with them and finding that chemistry?
Brie made herself very available to me while I was filming Ms. Marvel. She was the first person to contact me when I got cast. She got to know me as a person and asked me about my fears and insecurities. It was really nice to have someone hold my hand throughout all this and be the only other person who could understand what it's like being in a super-suit, how embarrassing it can be at times doing fight scenes that are going to look cool on-screen, but you're in a bald cap with tracking dots on your face in your super-suit in a harness in front of a green screen. It's a lot, and everyone is staring at you.
Brie would FaceTime me whenever I'd ask her, "I'm having an issue with this on Ms. Marvel. Can we talk?" and she'd go, "Absolutely!" Brie and I already had an established relationship going into The Marvels. Our entire cast -- me, Nia DaCosta, Brie, Teyonah, and Lashana Lynch -- we all went to go see Black Widow together right before we started filming the show at an actual movie theater. It was just the five of us in the theater. The Marvel Studios logo started playing, and we all started cheering. It was the cutest, most wholesome thing ever. Neither of them talked to me like I was a child. They respected and valued my opinion. It was nice to be heard, honestly.
I have to imagine that the group texts are epic.
Honestly, it's GIFs. [laughs] It's just GIFs.
As someone who started out as a fan of the character, gotten to play her, and gotten to write her in Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant with Sabir Pirzada, what insights have you gained about the character through it all?
What I honestly learned a lot from this film is that I realized how much Kamala is the glue of any group she's in, whether it's her family or her friends. She's a natural leader, and I wanted to explore more of that dynamic in the film, especially with Kamala being younger than all of them. I think she's the most mature [and] the most emotionally intelligent. Even though she's not actively speaking, she's watching and learning. I think she's going to apply all of this to the future with the Young Avengers thing because she's standing in between the history of two women, and they've got so much tension. Despite all of that, she isn't afraid to make tough calls or give her opinion. I like how outgoing she is and how unapologetically herself she is.
With the comics, I wanted to explore more of her powers. I miss them so much! [laughs] The comics are literally the perfect medium for them. I love the MCU powers and the comic book powers. You can do so much with them, and our artists Adam Gorham and Carlos Gomez truly elevated my script. The fight scenes are so cool. It's honestly a love letter to Kamala from me. I wanted everyone else to see why I love her so much.
Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, and Saagar Shaikh are back as Kamala's family, not just for the beginning but throughout all of The Marvels. I feel like Kamala's family is one of the things that makes her so special and unique. How was it working with them here?
The movie was so scary for me, and it was so nice because the first scenes we ever shot were the Khan family house, that fight scene with Nick Fury and Monica Rambeau coming to the house, and it was automatically just very comfortable. I went from filming the show, and then, two weeks later, I was doing the movie, so I was already in it. I felt very at home, even though I was in a very foreign environment. We were shooting in London, so it was literally foreign. It was the Khan family house, so I recognized that, and I recognized Saagar, Zenobia, and Mohan.
Nia also trusted us to bring a lot of what we already brought to our characters in Ms. Marvel into this movie. Just having that freedom and liberty was so nice, and it really set the tone for the entire shoot. Kamala really is one of the only people in the MCU -- minus Hope Van Dyne --whose parents are both alive. It's important to show that healthy loving relationship between kids and their parents. Kamala's family supports her throughout the show and the movie. They look out for her in ways other heroes honestly wish they had, with Monica being an orphan and Carol being a lonely space lady. It was very nice to have them around!
You mentioned the Young Avengers, and it makes sense that Kamala would become her generation's Nick Fury because no one else knows the heroes in the Marvel Universe like her. How was it playing that scene, right down the speech and sitting in the shadows?
Pretty crazy! I didn't realize it was actually going to happen because there was a version in the early days. It was the last scene we ever shot for the film, and it was just me and Hailee [Steinfeld], and I got to get to know her. It was a weird vibe because I was all sentimental about leaving the project after two years, and Hailee was like, "Hi, it's nice to meet you guys. This is my first day." We got on so well, honestly, and there are so many takes that are left on the cutting room floor of us just having wonderful banter going back and forth as Kamala and Kate.
It made me more excited about what this potential relationship could turn into. Kamala has romanticized the idea of being in a team-up and the idea of heroism in general from reading comic books, looking at Captain Marvel, from Scott Lang's book and podcast, and all of that. She's absorbed all that content, and now, I think she'll make the perfect team leader because she's learned so much from The Marvels. She knows what not to do based off a lot of Carol's mistakes and realizes her idol is maybe not the best leader. I think people will learn a lot from Kamala and her leadership skills, and I would love to see more of that in the future.
I was curious about the scenes on Aladna, which feels like a full-blown Disney musical. How is it being a fly on the wall for these extended musical sequences?
I loved it! I love musicals, and I also love when comic books are crazy. To me, this is what comic book movies should be. Comic books are so wild, and learning from writing a comic book, anything I say goes as long as the artist can draw it. Why not be as imaginative [and] crazy [as possible] and test the limits of what this character is capable of? I love Kelly Sue DeConnick's Captain Marvel run where she had Aladna. The story is so weird. Carol comes to a rhyming planet because she's trying to help out a mutant pop star named Lila Cheney, who's also an intergalactic teleporter. They're weird, crazy, and outgoing, and I'm glad we can bring even an ounce of that into the MCU.
There's actually a longer version of the Aladna dance, and hopefully, they release it on Blu-ray because it's so good and so well-choreographed. I was having the time of my life! The song is so good, everyone is so entertaining, the makeup is so good. It was one of the best weeks.
Being half-Korean, it was good seeing a Korean actor playing a princely god man.
Yeah, getting Park Seo-Joon was amazing! He carries himself with such effortless poise, and I love it.
We keep mentioning Nia DaCosta. How was it having her as the captain of this production?
She is amazing, to put it in one word. She really cares about the characters. She's also a nerd, and as intimidated as I was working with her from the start, that dissipated quickly because she loves Ms. Marvel and the comic books. One of the first times I got dinner with her, she gave me her entire pitch of what her Avengers movie would look like. I love that we can bounce ideas off each other and talk about Marvel just as fans. She absolutely set the example for all of us. These movies are not easy to make at all, and there are so many teeny, tiny things to pay attention to, a million moving pieces, all while making sure everyone on set is on the same page and comfortable.
It's a hard job, and she does it so effortlessly. I know there are days when she wanted to rip people's heads off, but she'd never show it, and that's amazing. She would never put her stress on anyone else. The vibe was so chill on set because of her and Mary [Livanos], our producer. They really did a great job of keeping our morale high. Also, just with their feminine energy, they were able to extrapolate very nuanced emotions out of fight scenes even, and I loved being able to tap into that.
This is the biggest project you've been a part of so far. What did you learn from being in this production moving forward?
I honestly learned a lot from Brie, Teyonah, and Sam about taking care of yourself. I was 17 when I got cast, so I already had a high school mindset of "Whatever! I'm going to live forever, and my body is never going to get broken!" That is wrong. Being in a harness will do things to your body that you didn't realize could happen. [laughs] Being able to say no and maybe letting my stunt double do that and not being involved in every single aspect -- because I would literally be on set for 24 hours if anyone asked me to, and I love being there and seeing the process.
But there are times when you have to forgive yourself and be kinder to yourself because these movies are extremely taxing physically and emotionally. It was nice to have Brie and Teyonah whisper in my ear, "You don't have to do that if you don't want to. If you're hurting, tell someone. We can help you before this gets worse." It's moments like that when I really appreciated having them there because Ms. Marvel was just me, and I was doing whatever, going wherever I wanted, and doing whatever people told me to do. This was way more of a learning opportunity, just honing in on testing my instincts and doing whatever I needed to do, but also taking care of myself.
What do you want to see and do next as Kamala Khan in the future?
I would love a Season 2 [of Ms. Marvel], for starters. [laughs] I think Kamala and her family have so much story left in them, and I want to explore those relationships more. I want to know what happens between Kamala and Bruno. I want to see what school she gets into with college. I want to see her be a person and live a life. At the same time, I also want her to lead her own team-up. It'd be cool to find a way to jump between the TV show format and movies in a way where it doesn't feel like every time you watch a movie, you have to do homework with 30 seasons of a show.
I just want to explore more Kamala, and that's half of the reason why I wanted to write this comic because I think this character has so much potential. There are so many avenues you can take this character because she's still so young, and people still respond to her being the audience surrogate in a lot of ways. I got to do that with a comic, and hopefully, I get to do more of that in the MCU!
The Marvels
Carol Danvers gets her powers entangled with those of Kamala Khan and Monica Rambeau, forcing them to work together to save the universe.
- Release Date
- November 10, 2023
- Director
- Nia DaCosta
- Cast
- Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Iman Vellani, Zawe Ashton
- Rating
- PG-13
- Runtime
- 105 minutes
Directed and co-written by Nia DaCosta, The Marvels is in theaters everywhere.
Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #4 is written by Iman Vellani and Sabir Pirzada and illustrated by Carlos Gomez. The issue goes on sale Nov. 29 from Marvel Entertainment.