The imminent premiere of ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ will mean, among many other things, the Marvel debut of Kathryn Newtonwhich many may remember thanks to its passage through titles such as ‘Pokémon: Detective Pikachu’ or ‘This body feels like death’, as the new Cassie Lang.
What an honor it was to make the film
At Espinof we have had the opportunity to chat with her about different aspects of the film. For example, Newton noted that “The most exciting thing is not becoming a superhero, it’s the cast, being able to work with such iconic actors as Michael Douglas or Michelle Pfeiffer. And I was a huge Paul Rudd fan forever, I love all his movies. And with Evangeline Lilly, who ‘lost’ that’s a huge series“Of course, he wanted to highlight the good relationship he had with Rudd:
This is Paul Rudd’s movie and he didn’t have to be so nice to me and make room for me, but he did. He encouraged me to try things and not be afraid of failure. And when you’re young you don’t want to screw up an opportunity like that. I was lucky he said that because I needed to hear it. And I promise you, no one on the entire planet would have enjoyed this opportunity as much as I did.
In addition, he stressed that “It is an honor for me to be part of the legacy of a character that was created 60 years ago. I hope the audience was as inspired as when I first saw ‘Iron Man’ as a child. There is a lot of magic in these movies, they are like fairy tales“.
A new Cassie
An important detail about her participation in the film is that the character of Cassie Lang already appeared in the first two installments and that she was then played by Abby Ryder. On that subject and how he approached Cassie in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ he commented this:
I love how much the fans already adored Cassie Lang. They were already a fan of the character from the previous movies, and if you’re a fan of the comics, there are many versions of Cassie, like Stature, Giant Girl, or Ant Girl. Here we start on the pages of Jeff Loveness’ script. I freaked out the first time I read it because I thought she was me. She sounded like me, she talked like me, and she’s a bit of a mess like me. They asked me if he had any notes to pass on in a chat we had over Zoom and I told them that he didn’t have any, that it was perfect that way.
I rewatched ‘Ant-Man’ six times before shooting started in my London apartment during lockdown. There was something very special there about Cassie, but here we honor Cassie’s legacy with a new version. You haven’t seen this girl before, and here you find out what she stands for. I hope the fans like it because I love this character, I feel like it was made for me.
And it is that she herself is clear that “the heart of this film is the story of a father and daughter reconnecting“and who likes to say that movie”is a kind of road trip for a father and daughter, which coincidentally takes place in the Quantum Realm and because of Cassie they unleash the ultimate villain“. Furthermore, Newton recognized that has in common with Cassie that “what we have in common is that we are both very impatient. We don’t wait, and she sometimes acts on the spur of the moment, which gets her into trouble.“.
In fact, one of the particularities of his character is that she didn’t have to learn here how to fight cool to impress the public and that his physical training focused on “learn how to fall and how to take hits“, given that “Essential to Cassie’s fighting style was that she couldn’t be cool, and instead go more like tripping over herself and such. It was important to know how to act like a disaster but without getting injured“.
Marvel Phase 5
Another important issue is that ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ is the start of Phase 5 of Marvelbut Newton pointed out that “When shooting the movie no one was talking about Phase 5, I just went to and tried to be the best Cassie Lang I could be every day. It was when I saw her when people were talking about the Kang Dynasty, Phase 5 and so on that I realized“, and also revealed his first action when he saw her:
When I first saw it, the first thing I told my team was that it was a huge movie. It’s not just another Ant-Man movie focused on reality and life at home, it’s bigger and it’s the start of the next Marvel Phase. As a fan, I think he does that very well.
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