I wasn't connected to my Pakistani roots before 'Ms Marvel': Iman Vellani

'The main theme of our show is to subvert expectations, throw away all the labels and become your own person'

“A wise man once said: ‘If you’re nothing without your suit, then you shouldn’t have it,” Iman Vellani tells The Guardian from her hotel room in Los Angeles with a straight face, leading the interviewer to believe she must be quoting Gandhi or Oscar Wilde. “It’s Tony Stark,” she says.

The 19-year-old Pakistani-Canadian actor has made the ultimate transformation in the new Disney+ television show Ms Marvel. Vellani plays Marvel Comics' Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old high school student and superhero fangirl, who discovers she has powers of her own. Like her character, Vellani is also a huge superhero fan, who made her own Ms Marvel costume when she was 15, as per Reuters. Her fictional character, a New Jersey nerd of Pakistani heritage resonates with Vellani, who is also a self-proclaimed ‘geek’. And according to the actor, it has helped her embrace her Pakistani roots.

On being Pakistani and Muslim

“Being Pakistani was a part of my life I was very dismissive about, and I felt disconnected from my culture prior to this show,” the actor shared in an interview with Esquire Middle East. “I was born in Pakistan but I moved to Canada when I was a year old, I didn’t feel like I had a connection to it. I didn’t have any Muslim Pakistani friends. And I’m so grateful I got to be on a show with so many Pakistanis and Indians, many of whom I grew up watching with my family,” she confessed.

“Filming the show, I learned so much about my ancestry. That’s such a special thing I get to share with the character,” she told in a similar vein to the British daily paper. “I went to a very diverse school and it’s so important to showcase a child of immigrant parents who is proud of their culture, doesn’t neglect it and doesn’t feel that they need to separate themselves from religion, their family or their culture to become their own person. I think that’s the main theme of our show: to subvert expectations and throw away all the labels and become your own person,” she added.

Reflecting on how her character arc is much like her personal journey, she shared with the Middle East outlet, “We both went on the same journey of self-discovery, learning about our family and our heritage as the show progressed. And now, I could not be prouder to be Pakistani. It’s cheesy, but it’s true.” And when inquired whether questions of “representation” are beginning to annoy her yet, Vellani said, “I’m not tired of it. I get it, this show is monumental. But for people who ask only representation questions, I’m just like, ‘God, yes. I know I’m brown.’”

Kamala Khan first appeared in the comics in 2013. She is one of the newer Marvel characters and part of a superhero generation led by women that is ethnically diverse, including the likes of She-Hulk, Elektra and female-centric X-Men series. Like her creators G Willow Wilson, a comics writer who converted to Islam as an adult and Sana Amanat, Marvel’s director of character development, she is Muslim American. Kamala’s conflicts are not just with supervillains, but with her spirituality, family duties and traditions: “This is not evangelism,” Wilson told the New York Times. “It was really important for me to portray Kamala as someone who is struggling with her faith.”

On being a teenage superhero

But thankfully Kamala’s story isn’t just about being Muslim. It has more to do with her adventures as a teenage dork with superpowers. As per The Guardian, she has crushes on boys and doesn’t know how to be cool around them. Like any regular teenager, “she argues with parents, stresses out about managing schoolwork while saving the planet. And is obsessed with Carol Danvers, also known as Captain Marvel,” which inspires her to name herself Ms Marvel upon discovering her ability to stretch parts of her body into shapes.

Kamala’s introduction also raised its fair share of eyebrows – at one point, a senior Marvel executive blamed diverse characters for the overall “slump” in print sales. But Ms Marvel was rather quick in finding her fanbase. One of those fans was Vellani herself. “The first issue of Ms Marvel I picked up was when Kamala is celebrating Eid. I showed it to my dad!” said the Karachi-born starlet. “I have a brother who’s six years older than I am and we only ever watched stuff that he wanted to watch – Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean and the MCU,” she recalled.

“In high school, my parents would to give me a $20 allowance and I’d spend it all on McDonald’s and Iron Man comics. It was an unhealthy obsession. One day, I picked up an Ironheart comic” – Ironheart is a related character to Iron Man – “and Kamala was on the cover. I was like: ‘Oh my God, who’s this brown person?’ That’s when I went on a whole Ms Marvel bender.”

On being Vellani (read, Kamala)

And yet, Vellani never wanted to be an actor, but when the audition opportunity arrived in the most “suitably brown way” – she heard about the casting call through family – she decided to go for it. “They emailed me back with an NDA and scripts. And I was like: ‘Oh my God, I know exactly which comic books these are from’. It was scary for me, but honestly, I knew the character so well that I just had to rely on that. Also, I made friends with [the casting director] Sarah Finn and [the executive producer] Louis D’Esposito on my first day [of auditions]. That was February 2020, but because of the pandemic they had to figure stuff out on their end. They were like: ‘You’re very much in the running. Just hang on.’ Hang on?! I have to go to school next year. What do I do? Am I working for Marvel or going to university?”

Vellani found out she had been roped in for the role on her last day of high school while hanging out with friends. “I didn’t think I could be Kamala. I still don’t think it’s hit me,” she said. But Vellani needn’t have worried. The decision was “unanimous”, according to Marvel Studios’ president Kevin Feige. Whenever Vellani fretted about her inexperience, Finn would remind her: “You already are Kamala.”