Evangeline Lilly, star of the Ant-Man films, has slammed Disney for the mass layoffs in Marvel Studios.
Evangeline Lilly played Hope van Dyne in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Evangeline Lilly blasts Disney
On Thursday, the 46-year-old actor shared a video on her Instagram account in which she addressed the recent layoffs in Marvel Studios. “I reached out to my good friend Andy Park, who was the genius behind creating the original Wasp super-suit and concept drawings, and I said, ‘Is this true? Is this really what’s happening?’ He said, ‘Yeah, it’s true.’ I can’t quite believe that Disney has let go of the artists who brought the Marvel Universe to life through their genius, and that the people who invented these characters and who designed them are being replaced by AI. AI that will take their designs and take what they created and use it to create iterations of that. I am so sorry, Andy. I am so sorry to every one of the artists who were let go.”
Lilly’s comments came after hundreds of artists, VFX technicians, and other crew members from Marvel films were let go. Reports claimed the mass firing could be linked to a larger Disney pivot to AI.
The Canadian actor then urged California legislators to intervene. “Where are the laws that REMOVE all human art from the AI bank?!?” she asked. “Why do they get to steal our brilliance and use it to make executives rich while the artists responsible for feeding their robots go hungry?? Disgusting. California lawmakers…where are you?!?!?”
Evangeline Lilly’s acting career
Evangeline Lilly first gained prominence as Kate Austen in the hit drama Lost. She was part of the show’s leading cast from 2004 to 2010. After that, she appeared in films like The Hurt Locker, Real Steel, and The Hobbit Trilogy. But it was as Hope van Dyne, aka Wasp, in Marvel films that she found mainstream success. She has appeared as the character in three Ant-Man films as well as Avengers: Endgame.
Abhimanyu Mathur is Deputy Editor, Entertainment at Hindustan Times. With almost 15 years of experience in writing about everything from films and TV shows to cricket matches and elections, he inhales and exhales pop culture and news. Currently, he watches movies and TV shows and talks to celebrities for a living, while occasionally writing about them as well. A journalism graduate of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University, Abhimanyu began his career with Hindustan Times at the age of 20, swapping classrooms for newsrooms at an early age. He began his journey in the early days of digital journalism, later switching to the madness of print journalism. Work has led him to far off places like Japan and Jordan, as well as to the interiors of Haryana and the Indo-Pak border. He dabbled in city reporting in places like Meerut, Gurgaon, and Delhi, covered the Olympics and Cricket World Cups, before finding his calling in entertainment and lifestyle during the pandemic. A Rotten Tomatoes Certified Film Critic, he is equally at home covering stories on ground as he is interviewing celebrities and studios, and sometimes prefers to shepherd teams in delivering traffic through the day. Even as his role has evolved from reporter to supervisor over the years, his first love remains writing (and of late, talking on camera). With a good understanding of cinema and its trends, and a keen eye for detail, he continues to spark conversations around showbiz for readers around the world.Read More
