Former “Lost” star Evangeline Lilly has been out playing Hope van Dyne/Wasp in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since the first “Ant-Man” film back in 2015.
She’s returned to the role for a fourth time in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” which has just opened today and recently revealed that her character was actually the third offer she had received to play a superhero on the big screen.
Appearing on the latest episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, she revealed the prior two offers she turned down came from Hugh Jackman for the “X-Men” franchise, and from Joss Whedon to play Wonder Woman.
She explains the “X-Men” offer came during her time co-starring with Jackman on 2011’s “Real Steel” – a time when the actress had just wrapped “Lost” whilst Jackman had several X-Men films under his belt:
“[Hugh] was like, ‘Hey, so, the X-Men guys are asking me if I would approach you because they know that you won’t talk to anybody. They knew I was working with you and were interested to know if it would ever interest you to do an X-Men thing’.
I was like, ‘No. It doesn’t interest me. I’m not interested.’ I was like, ‘I feel like such a dick because I’m talking to an X-Men! The X-Men! And I’m telling him, ‘No that doesn’t appeal. Like, what?!’ I felt so rude!”
She also confirmed she met with Whedon for the Wonder Woman role in a film that failed to get going. She says: “I think my impression, coming away from it, was I had no desire and he could tell… Nothing clicked. Nothing felt good.”
She added she knww there was a slight “offense taken” by Whedon, but says: “Honestly I wasn’t into superhero movies and that’s the main reason why, in both of these instances, I just kind of felt like I don’t know what I get out of this.”
The full interview with Lilly is up at Happy Sad Confused.
