For Ms. Marvel star Iman Vellani, joining the MCU was a dream come true because she’s every bit the Marvel fangirl as the character she plays in the series. Yet, despite hitting it off pretty well with Kevin Feige, she did commit the sin of watching WandaVision on her phone.
The 19-year-old Vellani was born in Pakistan, although her parents moved to Canada when she was just a baby, and it turns out growing up as a huge Marvel fan came in quite handy once she got the role of a lifetime in Ms. Marvel. In fact, even the Ms. Marvel directors have admitted that Vellani's mastery of Marvel and the MCU's lore rivals that of Feige and the very people that work on these movies and series, which probably explains why she came armed from day one with a slew of questions for her idol.
This is just one of many anecdotes rounded up on Marvel's own site to explain how playing Kamala Khan fits Vellani like a glove. As Executive Producer Sana Amanat puts it, "she reads everything, and she's such a huge fan. She's the ultimate fan. She belongs in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” a statement many others on set had no problem backing up. Apparently, Vellani absolutely fangirled over meeting Feige for the first time, as she explained, “This poor man was trying to talk to me, and me being so awkward made him super awkward, and we were just awkward together.”
Among the stories stemming from Vellani meeting her MCU idol, her co-star and on-screen brother Saagar Shaikh says, “Kevin Feige got mad at her for watching WandaVision on her phone. He's like, 'They're not made for phones! Watch it on TV!” which is probably not the impression she wanted to make on the Marvel Studios chief. Fret not, as Vellani's nerves around Feige eventually settled down. In fact, the young actor was eventually able to sit down with him over Zoom to finish going through her extensive four pages worth of 72 questions about the MCU, which the producer gladly answered.
While Kamala Khan is a noted Captain Marvel fangirl, Vellani has stated numerous times that her biggest nerd crush in the MCU is Iron Man, claiming at times that she’s sort of glad she’s never met Robert Downey Jr. because she would simply “implode” if that were to happen. Besides her MCU knowledge, the series also takes full advantage of Vellani's cultural background, as Ms. Marvel is using real Pakistan history to intertwine such events with the character's reformed origin story.
Still, the Ms. Marvel reviews are currently all over the place. The show is suffering review-bombing attacks online while some critics rate its niche teen comedy plot above the MCU's more glorified productions.
Ms. Marvel is currently available on Disney Plus.
Source: Marvel