Iman Vellani Opens Up About Real-Life Friendship With Brie Larson, And How It Connects With Kamala Khan’s The Marvels Arc

Kamala Khan is a Marvel superfan who found herself in the middle of the MCU alongside Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel, Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau and Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury thanks to some super circumstances. Iman Vellani is also a hardcore fan. The 21-year-old actress just entered the Marvel big leagues as one of the stars of The Marvels, and she spoke with CinemaBlend about what it’s like to know Brie Larson IRL.

Vellani told CinemaBlend she’s still pinching herself over being a “hometown hero” of Markham, the small suburban town outside of Toronto. Ahead of The Marvels premiere last week, her friends and family turned up to an early screening of the movie and sent her photos of themselves next to the Marvel logo. She calls her parents her “biggest promoters,” and she can call Brie Larson a true friend. Here’s what she told us:

It's so weird. Every time I go back home, I still have a poster of Brie on my wall, but I also have her phone number. So it's a weird thing to kind of accept, but no, we're like actual friends, which is crazy. And, I couldn't have imagined this like three years ago that I'd just be texting her like I do any of my other friends. I saw her in New York actually, and we were just hanging out the entire time I was like, not fangirling over her. And I was like, this is crazy. This is character development.

Much like Kamala Khan, Iman Vellani is noticing a change in herself as she looks Marvel fame in the face. She’s actual friends with Brie Larson now and she sees her as the human that she is. As Vellani continued:

And, I'm at the point where Kamala reaches at the end of the film where she like humanizes her idol and mentors and kind of realizes that yeah, they have issues too. And I cannot impose my idea of heroism onto her because she's her own person and she’s the way that she is for a lot of reasons. And her past has shaped who she is. And so I think Kamala has kind of observed Carol as a being in general from the beginning of the film and given her the space to allow her to be her own person. So I've kind of done the same in real life. Like, from my first day working with Sam Jackson to my last, my first day working with Kevin Feige to my last. So it's been nice to kind of realize that these people put on pants one leg at a time. They eat food just like we do.

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Unlike many Marvel actors, Vellani’s first time on a set was on Ms. Marvel, followed by The Marvels. She’s had a larger-than-life debut role in Hollywood, and she’s come to a point where she’s no longer necessarily putting people like Larson, Kevin Feige or Samuel L. Jackson on a pedestal anymore because they are colleagues of hers with whom she’s spent a sizable amount of time.

After The Marvels flipped from “rotten” to “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie had the weakest opening weekend for a Marvel movie to date. When Vellani was asked about the movie’s box office, the actress said that she was not focused on that because it’s “not even in my control” and “for Bob Iger” to worry about.

Vellani didn’t get the chance to see the movie on the big screen with fans when it premiered because when The Marvels first screened, the SAG-AFTRA actors strike was in its final days. The actress said she geeked out about the movie’s great scenes, including the exciting end credits scene, from a laptop in her room. Following The Marvels ending, Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan certainly has a bright future ahead of her, and here’s hoping she and Brie Larson will continue to share the screen in upcoming Marvel movies.