EVANGELINE LILLY

Hope van Dyne is about to put the sting into Ant-Man

For the generation that grew up on Lost, Evangeline Lilly will always be Kate Austen, the intrepid plane crash survivor with a dark secret in the mysterious JJ Abrams-produced show. But after the series ended in 2010, Lilly more than made her mark in movies – from the arrow-firing elf Tauriel in The Hobbit trilogy to Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker and the ultra-accomplished Hope van Dyne in Marvel’s Ant-Man, starring alongside Paul Rudd. She returns to the character of Hope – and her newlybestowed winged alter-ego – in Peyton Reed’s sequel, Ant-Man And The Wasp. Aside from looking like an absolute hero in the eyes of her little boy Kahekili, as she tells SFX, she’s come to appreciate the comic book movie like never before… You’re graduating from Hope to the Wasp here. How do you feel about taking flight?

I personally love it. I think it’s very exciting. It’s not going to be the first flying superhero – Ant-Man has his ants that he jumps on the backs of and flies – but it gives her an incredible amount of grace. Wasp always has the option of supporting herself with her wings. So everything can be lighter, precise and graceful. The trick is always how do you do that without her looking, for lack of a better word, girly? [How do you] make sure that she still looks powerful [or] that she still looks like she knows what she’s doing? That’s the balance we’re constantly yanking back and forth, making sure that she is feminine and graceful the way she is in the comic books but also can pack a punch. After repairing her relationship with her father in the first film, was it hard to show Hope’s emotional shift this time out?

It felt very unnerving. This character hasn’t changed so much in that gap of time… I mean I’m terrified people are just going to go, “What the hell? It’s a different person!” You can’t play two different people from one movie to the next. So, that was scary. That was hard. As we got rolling, I felt more and more comfortable in the space that we created. Have you ever trained as hard as you have for this?

I always stay in shape. It’s not different from what I normally do. If you look back at Lost, my first job 14 years ago, Kate was in really good shape. And all of my characters always are. This is just me. I don’t think of it as being a superhero persona, though I do think it is important for female superheroes to look strong and not just have beautiful breasts and butts. How have your family reacted to you playing a superhero?

My six-year-old son is already quite enamoured with the whole notion that his mom is the Wasp. The first day I was on the set – our incredible shrinking lab – I brought my six-year-old son and he’s running and he goes, “Mom, can I press the buttons?” There’s so many buttons on the set. I said, “You can press any button you want. You just have to be very gentle and careful.” So, he’s sitting at this large control panel and is pushing all the buttons and he turns around and he looks at his dad and he says, “Dad, look at me. I’m the Wasp.” God, that was a proud moment because I remember being a little girl, going, “Look at me, I’m Spider-Man.” And it’s usually the little girls pretending to be boy superheroes because we don’t have too many to choose from. And to hear my six-year-old little boy say, “Look at me, I’m the Wasp,” I just think that’s very exciting. Did you have an ambition to be in a comic book superhero movie before you took on Ant-Man?

I didn’t like superhero movies when I got offered this job. So, my initial reaction – do not tell Marvel! – was, “I don’t want to do a stupid superhero movie.” And my manager said, “Well, just hear me out” – because he knows me quite well – “Paul Rudd will be starring.” What? So, I thought this is really cool. Whatever they are doing is not the superhero movie I have previously seen and it really intrigued me. So, then I did my homework… I went back and watched some Avengers films and some other Marvel films and I just thought what they were doing was so unique and fun. What is your relationship with wasps?

Since I started shooting this film I have had multiple interactions with wasps. It’s like I’m a magnet now. But I have always loved insects. I was the caterpillar girl in school. I would get my friends to cover me from head to toe in caterpillars and run around and scare the other girls. I’ve always got really angry at people who kill insects. Don’t do that. It’s a living creature. My children love insects because I force them to. They don’t have a choice. So I feel like there’s no better fit for me if I were to choose a superhero persona.

Ant-Man And The Wasp is out 3 August.