Evangeline Lilly loves playing strong women as she's a 'control freak'

Before Brie Larson's Captain Marvel hits cinemas next March, another Marvel superheroine is set to create a buzz.

Ant-Man And The Wasp, the sequel to 2015's Ant-Man, is the 20th release in a decade from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) series of comic book movies, and the first to feature a woman in the title.

Opening here on July 4, it has Evangeline Lilly's Hope van Dyne suiting up as the Wasp and stepping up on an equal footing with Paul Rudd's Scott Lang, also known as Ant-Man.

The 38-year-old Canadian actress, who has a seven-year-old son and three-year-old daughter, has made a name for herself playing strong female characters.

She was the tough and resourceful fugitive Kate Austen in hit TV series Lost and fought orcs as the elf Tauriel in The Hobbit trilogy.

Speaking to The New Paper at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Taipei, where she was promoting Ant-Man And The Wasp, Lilly said: "Sometimes I wonder why these roles are attractive to me, and then I (realise) well, the truth is, I am kind of a control freak in real life.

"Like, I run my household, I run my husband, I run my children, I run my businesses."

Lilly said being attracted to a type of character boils down to having to relate to them.

"Sometimes I will read characters and I will think, 'Who would do that? Nobody would really do that. Well, somebody would do that, I just wouldn't do that.'

Now we have a female villain, a female heroine... and there is this incredible feminine energy that, of course, Paul brings to Ant-Man. Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly, teasing her co-star Paul Rudd

"If I am chosen to do a role, it means I believe her... And I believe that she is making choices (like how) a real woman would make choices.

"Again, I think that probably usually falls back on how I would make choices and what my experiences have been, because I need to relate to my characters."

But she was quick to add: "But I don't actually walk around kicking guys' asses."

Ant-Man And The Wasp takes place two years after the events of 2016's Captain America: Civil War, where Ant-Man fought on the side of Captain America and ends up under house arrest.

On how Hope, the daughter of scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) who discovered Ant-Man's shrinking technology, has changed since the first movie, she said during a press conference the day before our roundtable interview: "There has been a lot of healing and a lot of growth.

"Not just because she is in a better place with her father, but also because her life-long dream of taking up the mantle of what her parents carried, of being a superhero, has also come true."

The Wasp, who shares Ant-Man's ability to change size at will but can also fly and shoot energy blasts, was introduced in 1963 and was one of the founding members of the Avengers in the comics.

Though she did not appear in the recent Marvel blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War, Lilly joked: "For the record, I was there, I was just tiny."

She believes her Wasp suit, which fans first saw in a mid-credits scene in the first movie, is the most comfortable one in the MCU.

"I don't know if it is just because I liked it so much and felt so cool in it, that I really wanted to wear it. I slept in it, I ate in it, I bathed in it, I never took it off, ever. I am very method," she joked.

One problem she faced, however, had to do with her eating habits.

She said: "I like to eat in large quantities. And I am in a tight suit where I can barely breathe, let alone eat. So I had to eat in tiny quantities all day. That was irritating."

Lilly is also excited that the sequel's villain Ghost, originally a male character in the comic books, is played by British actress Hannah John-Kamen, last seen as antagonist F'Nale Zandor in Ready Player One.

"Now we have a female villain, a female heroine and we have other females I can't talk about. We are all together in this movie, and there is this incredible feminine energy that, of course, Paul brings to Ant-Man," she joked, turning to look at her co-star Rudd, who responded with a "Thanks?"

While Hope was already training Scott in hand-to-hand combat in the first movie, the trailers for the sequel show her turning it up a notch and flipping other cars over while driving.

Lilly said of working with Rudd: "We are supporting one another, and when we are on set, we are just having a really good time together."

With the first Ant-Man making more than US$519 million (S$707 million) worldwide and coming on the heels of the record-breaking successes of Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War, is there more pressure for this to deliver?

Lilly said: "If this movie flops, it is my fault because (Paul's) proven he can make a (hit) movie."

Box office takings aside, just being a part of the MCU has been "an incredible honour".

She gushed: "I could not in any way anticipate that it would be so loved and all over the world... To be in a position where your name is in this title and these people are coming into the movie theatres to see that... It is pecial."