Evangeline Lilly Didn't Have To Worry Too Much About Training For Ant-Man Action Scenes

In "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania," Evangeline Lilly is suiting up again to play a superhero. The latest chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — which begins Phase 5 — has Lilly's Hope van Dyne/Wasp, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton), Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) getting sucked into the quantum realm. Waiting for them are a whole lot of enemies from Janet's 30 years there, and Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), who will be the big bad for Phase 5. 

If you've watched the trailers, you know that there are going to be some major battles, and even Cassie has a super suit. We're all used to actors going through months and months of intense physical training for superhero roles. Hey, you've got to get those muscles ready to be on display in the suit, right? One actor in "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania" didn't have to deal with endless workouts and skinless chicken-type food, however. Evangeline Lilly recently stopped by Good Morning America to talk about her role in the new MCU film, and she revealed how it all worked and how she feels about it. 

Host Lara Spencer mentioned Rudd talking about how much he had to work out for this film and asked Lilly if it was tough for her. Lilly laughed, saying: 

"No, it wasn't tough for me at all, like not at all. I actually didn't work out for this movie one bit. [...] Although I haven't really even in the past films. Because I do like to stay in shape year-round, but it's really because when my character has action, she's always this big [indicating the size of an inch or so with her hands], which means it's a micro-unit and CGI, and I don't get to do anything, which I was mad about in the first round. 

"In 'Ant-Man and The Wasp' I was like, 'I want to do it! I want to fight!' But in this movie, I was 43 and getting a bit older, and I was like, 'This actually is good...' Sitting back and enjoying myself while they did all this."

There are probably many superhero film cast members who are envious of Lilly getting to just sit back and watch. Just thinking about the workouts Jonathan Majors had to do while training for the role of Kang, "Creed III," and "Magazine Dreams" makes me want to sit on my couch forever and order pizza. Still, Lilly actually did do some training for the last film in 2018, as she documented on her Instagram (and via Men's Health). She was coming back from, as she says, "a very serious physical breakdown" and wanted to "bring the Wasp back to life again." Having it all done with CGI must have made things a lot easier this time around.

"Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania" hits theaters on February 17, 2023.