Captain Marvel 2 star Zawe Ashton discusses her approach to playing an MCU villain. The upcoming Marvel Studios movie will be the franchise's first from director Nia DaCosta, who takes over from previous Captain Marvel directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. After some recent schedule shuffling, the movie officially titled The Marvels is set to release theatrically on July 28, 2023.

Not much is known about the upcoming movie's storyline, but what has been made public is primarily on the superhero side. The Marvels sees Brie Larson's Captain Marvel joined by both Teyonah Parris' Monica Rambeau, fresh off her supporting turn in WandaVision, and Ms. Marvel star Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan. While it's expected that the three will eventually team up, they'll likely have some issues to work out first, as Monica still harbors resentment over Carol Danvers abandoning Maria Rambeau, her mother, from the 1990s through to her death from cancer.

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Even if there's conflict there, however, The Marvels does have a villain, with Ashton having been announced as an as-yet-unnamed antagonist. In an interview with NYT, the actor notes that her character might complicate that role, given that she always approaches her parts with a degree of authentic emotion. While she doesn't reveal anything about what's planned for her in the MCU movie, Ashton guarantees viewers she'll at least start by understanding the deeper meaning behind her villain's actions. Check out her response below:

I don’t really know any other way of going about it, to be honest. I have to start with something real and emotional and authentic and build out from there. I have to understand the deeper meaning in my head.

Zawe Ashton in Velvet Buzzsaw

Ashton complicating the idea of the villain in The Marvels would suit the franchise, as Captain Marvel's Skrulls twist notably turned fans' understanding of the shapeshifting alien race on its head. Should she be playing an alien character, perhaps another Kree, the villain could end up being so just by virtue of standing on the opposite side of the Kree-Skrull war that Danvers has taken a side in. If Captain Marvel has indeed tipped the scales as much as her strength allows, an opposing warrior taking steps to defend her planet's interests could end up looking more sympathetic to audiences.

On top of that, the Captain Marvel of the MCU present is not a character that fans know particularly well, having seen her only in brief appearances outside of her origin story. Viewers of the Disney+ TV shows will come in with a stronger personal connection to both Monica and Kamala, who offer two very different perspectives on Carol Danvers: one skeptical, the other adoring. Whoever Ashton's Captain Marvel 2 villain turns out to be, it'll likely be someone who can shake up both of those perspectives, so that the three can eventually unite as equals.

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Source: NYT

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