Streaming Wars is a weekly opinion column by IGN’s Streaming Editor, Amelia Emberwing. Check out the previous entry, about The Girls on the Bus. This interview is a part of IGN's Women's History Month coverage.
A/N: An update was made to this column on the day of publish at 3:30PM PST, as a flerken mucked up the works. (Read: One instance of "flerken" was spelled with an "i".)
With The Marvels hitting Disney+ back in February, I had the opportunity to sit down with Marvel star Teyonah Parris to chat not just about the streaming and digital release, but Monica Rambeau’s place in the big, wide multiverse, as well as representation as a whole, the remarkable women she’s worked with, and raising the next generation of little geek girls.
While behind-the-scenes looks at The Marvels (and any other Parris starring project) give a glimpse at how at ease the actress is, you don’t know that she brings that energy to everyone around her until you’re occupying the same space. Parris arrived at our studio dressed to the nines — she was making the promotional rounds in Los Angeles and Burbank that day — and with a small army of a team. It can be an intimidating scene to witness, especially when someone carries themselves with the level of confidence that Parris does, but she couldn’t have connected with our teams faster.
I think it’s important to stress that I’m not talking about myself here, either. That wouldn’t be noteworthy — plenty of celebrities are known to gas up interviewers for whatever myriad of reasons they think may benefit the coverage. No, what I mean is that Parris is the exact type of person who still remembers that everyone she’s dealing with is a human being. (Something that probably shouldn’t be noteworthy, but I do live in Hollywood.)
Parris had an air of personability with everyone she spoke to that day but, for me, the most memorable moment was when she met my colleague who was acting as a producer for me that day. Sarah is a Captain Marvel super fan who has been following Lieutenant Trouble’s story since the beginning and was nervous to meet the woman who portrays one of her on-screen favorites. “Never meet your heroes” is a saying for a reason, after all! But when I introduced the two, Parris could not have been more engaged as Sarah quickly explained that she still had a Captain Marvel poster up in her room and gushed over the new film.
The press cycle is grueling. You never have time for anything — Parris and company hadn’t even had lunch yet — you’re sprinting from place to place, and your schedule is jam-packed, but at no moment did Parris make Sarah or anyone else feel like they didn’t have time to share or reach out. Those small moments should be celebrated more, I think. I suspect Sarah will carry that kindness with her for a long time.
As you may recall, The Marvels didn’t get a traditional pre-release press cycle as a result of the Hollywood strikes. Parris, Brie Larson, Iman Vellani and the rest of the film’s stars all had to watch from home as Flerkens overtook the red carpet. It might be easy to (cynically) assume that Parris' kindness that day was due to the combination of having to (mostly) miss out on promoting a film she loved making and being excited to hear someone loved it after all of the undeserved hate that was thrown at the film and its stars. But, thankfully, that hate never really made it Parris’ way.
“I can't say that I really felt the hate because we were in a very disconnected time,” she tells me. “I was surrounded by people who were excited for me, people who wanted and were waiting to see me and these other women get up here and kick butt. So I felt a lot of love.”
It turns out that love would play a very important role in Parris’ life from the point that she wrapped on the film all the way through the red carpet, largely because, after all of that work, she didn’t get the chance to traditionally wrap on the film (which usually involves some fanfare and goodbyes). That’s because on the day before she was to wrap, someone she had been in proximity to tested positive for COVID.
“And so they snatched me anyway, so I never actually wrapped,” Parris explains. “I was like, ‘What? You have got to be kidding me.’ Like, 10 months or whatever, however long we were here and the day before, I didn't have COVID, but someone around me had it. And so they snatched my butt off the set.”
Parris didn’t pretend like missing out on the red carpet didn’t sting, too. “I'm watching the Flerkens and the cats on the red carpet like, ‘That's some bull,’” she says, being candid about her reaction at the time.
I love Nia's mind and how it works.
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Still, her relationships helped get her through the hurdles of filming during quarantine and then ultimately missing out on many of the celebrations that should have come along with wrapping a major blockbuster. Parris speaks fondly of Larson and Vellani all throughout our discussion, highlighting the bonds that formed as they explored their own corner of the multiverse. But there was one particular relationship that was already well formed before Parris had even stepped foot on set — the one she has with writer/director Nia DaCosta. The Marvels marks the second project the two have worked on together after 2021’s Candyman.
“I love Nia's mind and how it works,” Parris explains after I ask what makes her keep coming back for DaCosta projects. “She's also just very collaborative and open to ideas, and also just really gives me, the artist, the space to make their own choices. [...] So I’ve loved our working relationship. She trusts me, I trust her, and we have been able to just make really cool projects and movies from that that are rooted in that trust.”
That trust is most certainly evident as you watch the behind-the-scenes footage on The Marvels Blu-ray (or the Assembled episode on Disney+) and see Parris flinging about in a stunts rig she is clearly terrified of but did her best to conquer anyway.
The MCU [...] has opened up so much to be more diverse and show that superheroes can look like any of us.
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DaCosta marks only the second woman of color — and the first Black Woman — to direct an MCU film. While there’s still much work to be done behind the camera so far as involving more diverse voices is concerned, we have started to see some real progress in Phases 4 and 5 when it comes to getting women and people of color better represented in the MCU’s vast, sprawling multiverse. When Parris and I started discussing what this means, we got on the topic of the next generation of little Black girls watching these projects, and what it means for her to raise her daughter in a world where we have characters like Monica Rambeau front and center in popular culture.
“I am so grateful for that. I am excited that my child, this whole generation of younger people and also adults... I actually needed this sort of content in college,” she says. “Right now in the MCU and in this superhero space, it has opened up so much to be more diverse and show that superheroes can look like any of us.”
But it’s not just the “super” part that matters. Part of what makes The Marvels shine is that it’s the first time we get to see Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel fully treated as a human instead of a monolith, alongside Monica finally getting the opportunity to feel and really grieve all of the tragedy and unfinished business that has followed her throughout her entire tenure in the MCU. That impact really hits home for Parris.
“Just to see people who look like you, [or] who don't look like you, be in situations that are familiar but are also quite extraordinary,” she says, “and how they deal with those circumstances and trials that may come to them and watching them be human, they are super.”
It took a long time — 15 years, but who’s counting — for us to get to something as incredible as The Marvels in the MCU. In 2008, a film centering on three women, none of which look like each other or share a cultural background, felt like an impossible dream. And it’s directed by a wildly talented Black woman? If you’d told 18-year-old me that something like this could be in my future, I would have laughed. Pretty bitterly, frankly (that’s right, I’ve always been this way). But here we are now, in a present where films like The Marvels don’t just exist, but are laying the groundwork for the future of what has ultimately been the longest-running film saga of our generation.
Representation may move at a glacial pace, but move it does. It’s really hard to remember that sometimes — at least for me. Parris carries herself with such grace as we bounce back and forth between the delight of The Marvels and the unearned hate it received. She undoubtedly feels the frustrations of it all too, but while someone like me reacts with her temper, Parris simply puts forth her joy and, perhaps most importantly, her hope. That comes through so clearly when she discusses her advice for the next little Black girl dreaming about becoming the next Marvel superhero.
“Oh. Baby, it's possible,” she starts with a grin. “It is possible, and I pray that you come in and do things that I couldn't do and that you show the world spaces and abilities and humanity and compassion and grace in ways that I couldn't do and that it just keeps carrying on and carrying forward. But, baby, you can do it, and you can do whatever else you want to do. It really is possible. I am truly sitting in a dream, a dream."
Some quotes have been edited or condensed for clarity.
