With Ms. Marvel being just a week from release on Disney Plus, some background information about star Iman Vellani has resurfaced that mostly totally reaffirms the young actor is the perfect person for the role; she’s a huge fan of the Kamala Khan comic book character she is slated to portray, impressively studied with the same drama teacher as Obi-Wan Kenobi star Hayden Christensen, and demonstrates a love for cinema.
In fact, Vellani’s well-known cinephile status is so long-standing that she was a Toronto International Film Festival Next Wave committee member in high school, and even wrote a number of movie reviews on Letterboxd, the social media app for movie lovers.
“That and my Vimeo were the only things I never took down,” said Vellani, who is something of a prolific experimental filmmaker as well, in a recent interview with Now Toronto.
“I was going through a phase in high school where I thought I was really artsy and would only watch arthouse movies […] I’m very much still in that whole cinephile world. It’s so incredible that we got to experience that and highlight so many fresh and young voices – marginalized voices and Canadian voices – all who are making movies about this coming-of-age experience.”
Hopping over to Vellani’s apparent Letterboxd account, it’s clear she has a penchant for arthouse films, just like the interviewer mentioned, such as Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, Taxi Driver, La Jetée, Lee Chang-Dong’s The Master, Burning, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
However, she’s also rated a number of Marvel movies, too — and not always favorably. Hilariously, but accurately, Vellani rated 2019’s Captain Marvel with just two stars, despite the fact that her character, Ms. Marvel, is directly, tied to the universe of that film. Vellani’s Ms. Marvel starts out as a superfan of Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers.
In the review of the film, Vellani noted, “These stars are not for Brie Larson, I will sacrifice my own life…for Brie Larson.”
She also rated 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Sufer with just two stars, writing in true fashion for a comic book fan, “Don’t be shy, Show galactus.”
However, don’t tell her Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 is trash, because she’ll apparently Stan that film all night long. She said of the somewhat overly-maligned film, “This is so unironically great,” giving it three and a half stars.
However, she’s given plenty of other Marvel projects high ratings, including giving Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse five stars, Avengers: Endgame five stars, Guardians of the Galaxy and Vol. 2 four stars, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Far From Home four stars, Thor: Ragnarok four stars, Avengers five stars, Deadpool four stars, Iron Man five stars, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier four and a half stars, among many others.
Nothing wrong with a little constructive criticism. Kevin Feige, take note.
You can catch Vellani star in Ms. Marvel on Disney Plus beginning June 8.
