Iman Vellani shares excitement about playing Marvel’s first Muslim superhero

Washington, June 19: Actor Iman Vellani, who has been cast as Marvel’s first Muslim superhero headliner, is excited to bring “an entirely new diaspora of fans into the MCU.”

Vellani, who is a 19-year-old Pakistani-Canadian, portrays Kamala Khan/Ms Marvel in the Disney Plus series ‘Ms Marvel’, the seventh television series in the MCU, which premiered on June 8.

Vellani told the news outlet Deadline that she was looking forward for fans’ reaction, as so much of the narrative is about what it means to be a Marvel fan: “I’m excited to see their reaction. All my family back in Pakistan are so excited.”

Regarding her character’s development, she revealed that she was 17 when she was cast as 16-year-old Kamala: “We had so many conversations, the directors and I, just incorporating so much of my real-life and real-life experiences. I feel like I totally lived Kamala’s life.”

Her British co-star Rish Shah, who plays the role of Kamran, explained that blending in on set felt unusually pleasant. “It’s not often I got to go to a set where I felt like I belonged so much, where you can blend in so naturally and have people that look like us surrounding us on all fronts, whether that’s the crew, the cast, the writers’ room,” he said.

‘Ms Marvel’ will consist of six episodes, concluding on July 13. It is part of Phase Four of the MCU. It will serve as a set-up for the film ‘The Marvels’, planned for release next year, in which Vellani will reprise her role as Khan along with additional cast members from the series, as per Deadline.