Fresh out of high school, Iman Vellani rushed to Los Angeles from Ontario last year to shoot the series Miss Marvel, created by Bisha K. Ali, which will be released on June 8, 2022 on Disney+. Based on comics dating back to 2014 only, the story of Miss Marvel is one of the company’s most recent adaptations, and will be extended by the film. The Marvels, which is scheduled for release in 2023 and in which Iman Vellani will also be present. For the Pakistani-Canadian actress, it is above all her very first role on screen. Until then, she had only acted in school plays, says the Times.
On the side of Marvel, this is the first time that a Muslim character occupies the top of the bill in a film adaptation. Thus, Iman Vellani interprets the character of Kamala Khan, a teenager of Pakistani origin in New Jersey, who juggles between her family problems and her difficulties to find her place. Admiring Marvel’s band of superheroes and dreaming of fighting alongside them, one day she awakens her curious power: her arms can transform “in powerful and psychedelic extending limbs”, explain it Times.
“You are already Kamala”
Kamala Khan’s story seems to echo that of Iman Vellani. Indeed, the latter is also a fan of the Marvel world since childhood, and her three favorite people are “Robert Downey Jr., Billy Joel et Kevin Feige, patron des studios Marvel”, she confides in New York Times. If Iman Vellani’s favorite hero is rather Iron Man and not Captain America like her character, she is also a fan of Miss Marvel, and tells in the Canadian daily The Globe and Mail that she put on her Halloween costume.
The similarities do not stop there: both from Pakistani immigration, they arrived young in North America, the parents of Iman Vellani being from Karachi and living in Markham, Ontario, says the New York Times.
So many arguments that weighed in the balance when it came to choosing the actress for the role. In 2020, Iman Vellani rigorously passed all the casting stages, and the decision was “unanimous”, according to Kevin Feige, reports the The Guardian. The producer, to reassure her about her acting, often repeats to her: “You are already Kamala.”
Absent from social media
The actress of Marvel’s first Muslim heroine knows the responsibility that weighs on her shoulders. She embodies Marvel’s relatively recent desire to make more room for diversity in its castings. “It took Marvel 18 movies before a black actor got the lead role (Chadwick Boseman in Black Panther) and 21 films before an actress took on a title role (Brie Larson in Captain Marvel)”, remind him Times.
She must now face criticism from the public who consider that “any desire to reflect the diversity of society is contrary to the traditions of the genre” and that “expresses with virulence his dissatisfaction on social networks”, writes the American daily. Iman Vellani, who is not present on any social network, nevertheless takes a step back: “You can’t please everyone”, she says to New York Times.
The actress says she is delighted that Kamala Khan can allow identification from non-white viewers. Initially, Iman Vellani did not read comics whose heroine was a woman, “because she couldn’t find herself there”, she remembers with the Globe and Mail. But everything changed when she discovered the superheroine she plays today: “I was really intrigued by discovering this non-white person and completely immersed myself in the universe of Miss Marvel.”