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Captain Marvel hit theaters this weekend and introduced the world to some seriously powerful women. Aside from the title character (played by Brie Larson), Marvel’s latest action flick highlights the real superpowers exhibited by real women every day with the introduction of Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau.
TheGrio caught up with the British beauty who first fell onto our radar when she starred as Juliet in ABC’s Still Star-Crossed in 2017 to find out how she tapped into her power to play this important role.
“Maria Rambeau is an ex-test fighter pilot who already knew her strength from a child. I think she was raised really well and in turn she knew exactly how to raise her daughter. She’s a proud single mother who doesn’t need the male to tell her what to do or to navigate her narrative and I think she is just in complete control of her power and she learned her power quite early. In that, she recognized the power in Carol and I think that’s what made them really close friends,” says Lynch.
While Captain Marvel is full of the usual fight scenes, insane effects, and a healthy dose of a drastically younger-looking Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury; the real heart of the film lied in the friendship between Carol Danvers (Larson) and Rambeau (Lynch), and reminds viewers that women are fully capable of saving their own lives in the real world.
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“It was so refreshing to be able to represent love in a female friendship because we never see it. It’s like we are all experiencing this thing; we all have good friends or a best friend or a colleague or someone that we turn to,” she says.
“When people watch this, they’re going to say ‘Oh, I really don’t see that. How, when I experience that every day?’ That’s something that should have been represented from centuries ago and it’s just really special. It’s a really special time and it feels like we are on our way to a movement.”
According to Lashana Lynch, Brie Larson is the perfect person to play Captain Marvel.
“She is someone who knew and is learning her strength and her power as a woman. She already knew it and you can see it in the way she navigates the industry and she knows her voice and she uses her voice for the right reasons. She also pushes damn hard, man,” says Lynch.
“She worked so hard for this role….that got her to a place where she knew she wanted to represent a real human who just happens to have superpowers. When you see those moments between her and Maria, they’re just normal women having a chit chat, connecting with each other and having each other’s back. It’s nice she finds her truth in Maria when she gets back to normal society.”
Even more exciting than seeing a Black single mom save the day is the realization that Captain Marvel may be laying the groundwork for us to see a woman of color in a starring role in a future Marvel flick. In the comics, Rambeau’s daughter, Monica, eventually becomes an incredibly powerful superhero names Photon and we can’t wait to see if this beautiful Black girl grows up to save the world in a flick of her own.
Check out the full interview above.