![]() The decision was “unanimous”, according to Marvel Studios’ president, Kevin Feige whenever Vellani fretted about her inexperience, Finn would remind her: “You already are Kamala.” I still don’t think it’s hit me,” she says. There are clips online of the moment her face cannot contain the joy or the shock. She was hanging out with friends when the video call came in. Vellani found out she had the role on her last day of high school. What do I do? Am I working for Marvel or going to university?” Just hang on.’ Hang on?! I have to go to school next year. They were like: ‘You’re very much in the running. That was February 2020, but because of the pandemic they had to figure stuff out on their end. “Also I made friends with Sarah Finn and Louis D’Esposito on my first day. I knew the character so well that I just had to rely on that. It was scary for me, but honestly I knew my shit. And I was like: ‘Oh my God, I know exactly which comic books these are from. “They emailed me back with an NDA and scripts. But when the audition opportunity arrived in the most suitably “brown” way (she heard about the casting call through family, AKA Auntie WhatsApp), she decided to go for it. ![]() I was like: ‘Oh my God, who’s this brown person?’ That’s when I went on a whole Ms Marvel bender.” One day, I picked up an Ironheart comic” – Ironheart is a related character to Iron Man – “and Kamala was on the cover. “My parents used to give me a $20 allowance and I’d spend it all on McDonald’s and Iron Man comics. In high school, the obsession fully formed. I know I’m brown”’ … Vellani as Ms Marvel. ‘Some people only ask representation questions. “I have a brother who’s six years older than me and we only ever watched stuff that he wanted to watch – Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean and the MCU.” She was born in Karachi, Pakistan, before her family moved to Canada, where she grew up surrounded by Marvel, when she was one. “The first issue of Ms Marvel I picked up was when Kamala is celebrating Eid. Khan’s introduction was not without controversy: at one point, a senior Marvel executive blamed diverse characters for the overall slump in print sales, while Amanat has described having to brace for negativity from “people who are Muslim and might want the character portrayed in a particular light”. And she is obsessed with Carol Danvers, also known as Captain Marvel, eventually naming herself Ms Marvel when she discovers the ability to make parts of her body huge and stretch into shapes. She stresses out about managing her schoolwork while saving the planet. She has crushes on boys and doesn’t know how to be cool around them. It is much more about her adventures as a teenage dork with superpowers. “It was really important for me to portray Kamala as someone who is struggling with her faith.”īut crucially – and realistically – Khan’s character and story is not just about being Muslim. Kamala Khan’s conflicts are not just with supervillains, but with her spirituality, family duties and traditions: “This is not evangelism,” Wilson told the New York Times. She is Muslim American – like her creators G Willow Wilson, a comics writer who converted to Islam as an adult, and Sana Amanat, Marvel’s director of character development – and her religion and culture is embraced. She is one of the newer Marvel characters and part of a superhero generation led by women and ethnically diverse characters (see also She-Hulk, Elektra and an X-Men series focused on women). Kamala Khan first appeared in the comics in 2013. ‘The show is very much like how it is in my real life’.
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