As Disney+ releases the six episodes of “Ms. Marvel” this summer season, POPSUGAR has unique interviews with the forged and creators about making the present come to life. This week, Yasmeen Fletcher chats with POPSUGAR about episode two, “Crushed.”
Yasmeen Fletcher actually loves her “Ms. Marvel” character, Nakia. Earlier than she knew the present was going to occur, a good friend informed her concerning the comics, explaining the way it was all a few Pakistani American Muslim teenager with the same tradition to Fletcher’s. “I instantly went to the comic-book retailer and picked up the primary comedian I may discover and skim by way of it and fell in love with it,” she tells POPSUGAR.
When Fletcher heard rumors a few present adaptation, the actor informed her supervisor she wanted to be part of it and he or she wanted to play her favourite character, Nakia. “She’s simply so sturdy and he or she’s sort of a badass,” Fletcher says of her character. “She’s not afraid to talk her thoughts, and he or she’s simply so assured in who she is and so loving in the direction of her mates and dependable and supportive and fiercely outspoken in the direction of the individuals she loves [and] her neighborhood.”
All these traits of Nakia are on show within the second episode of the sequence, when she — with help from her greatest good friend Kamala (Iman Vellani) — decides to run for a seat on the council that runs her mosque. Fletcher loves how rapidly Nakia decides to leap into it. At first, she’s undecided, after which, “She’s like, ‘I’ve obtained posters printed out. I’ve obtained buttons. We’re doing this full power. I’ve obtained a marketing campaign plan and you’re all concerned,'” Fletcher says.
There is a very enjoyable second the place Nakia explains her sport plan to Kamala and Bruno (Matt Lintz) on the mosque’s Eid social gathering. It is paying homage to the scene in lots of basic high-school motion pictures the place somebody breaks down all the college’s cliques for the brand new child — however right here, it is all of the cliques on the mosque. “It sort of parallels Kamala’s AvengerCon plan otherwise, however you get to see it in a really Nakia, take-control kind of twist,” Fletcher says, referencing the occasions of the primary episode.
Episode two additionally incorporates a very candy scene between Nakia and Kamala within the rest room. Kamala, having simply found her powers, is struggling to maintain them beneath management whereas she’s at college. She runs to the toilet in a panic, and Nakia follows her. Assuming her good friend is on her interval, she passes her a tampon over the stall door. Fletcher loves that second. “Nakia and Kamala are so genuinely supportive of one another and have a lot love for one another,” she says. “She does not absolutely know what’s really occurring along with her within the rest room stall. . . . ‘No matter you bought occurring, I obtained you,’ and that basically is the most effective model of a feminine friendship and the most effective one which you would ask for.” Fletcher says the connection between the 2 reminds her of her personal greatest good friend and that she and Vellani are simply as shut now after filming the sequence.
In each the present and the comics, Nakia chooses to put on a hijab. Fletcher does not, nevertheless it was actually necessary to her to showcase this facet of Nakia’s and plenty of Muslim ladies’s identities. “I used to be actually captivated with translating her accurately,” she explains. “I used to be additionally surrounded by an extremely proficient Muslim artistic group who have been extraordinarily supportive and in addition had that dedication and fervour for the character and wished to be sure that she was sturdy and empowered in her hijab.”
She provides, “I used to be all ears always and I wished to be taught every thing that I presumably may, as a result of once more, this character is so necessary to me and I do know she’s so necessary to so many individuals.”
“I’ve by no means heard the blended expertise talked about on TV as a result of it looks like a distinct segment matter, nevertheless it’s not.”
However one main change the artistic group did make was to Nakia’s ethnic background. Within the comics, she’s Turkish American, however for the present, they determined to make her Lebanese American and blended race, like Fletcher. In episode two, Nakia delivers a monologue about how selecting to put on a hijab helps her really feel empowered and safer in her Muslin religion and in her id as a mixed-race particular person. She says, “My complete life, I’ve both been too white for some individuals or too ethnic for others. And it has been this very uncomfortable, sucky in-between. So once I first put this on, I hoped to close some individuals up, however I kinda realized I do not actually need to show something to anyone. Like, once I put this on, I really feel like me. Like, I’ve a goal.”
“It was extraordinarily gratifying [to deliver that monologue],” Fletcher says. “I’ve by no means heard the blended expertise talked about on TV as a result of it looks like a distinct segment matter, nevertheless it’s not. . . . You reside on this in-between area, and I feel we’re additionally sort of afraid to speak about the way it feels rising up in that liminal area.”
Wanting forward, there’s one huge take a look at coming to Nakia and Kamala’s relationship: Kamala’s new standing as a superhero, which Nakia nonetheless does not learn about. As Fletcher factors out, it is clear from the primary two episodes of “Ms. Marvel” that Nakia just isn’t a fan of superheroes. “She thinks that the actual heroes are the individuals on the streets making change,” she says. “She simply does not actually like the way in which that superheroes have dealt with the saving of the world as a result of it additionally causes just a little little bit of destruction, too.” She provides, “As a lot as she has her grievances with superheroes, she additionally actually, actually, actually loves her greatest good friend.” How issues will shake out stays to be seen.
Fletcher says it has been an extended wait to get these episodes on display screen; they wrapped principal images in Could 2021, then did some reshoots this winter. And the wait hasn’t helped her nerves about reactions from viewers. “You’d suppose in that two-year time interval, we’d be like, ‘So I am prepared now,'” she says. “That does not really occur. That could be a false impression. When you get right here, you’re nonetheless not prepared for it.”
However it doesn’t matter what occurs — a season two, possibly? — Fletcher is grateful for the friendships she made on set. She says inside three weeks of figuring out one another, a few of the forged determined to get matching lightning-bolt tattoos. “On the final day, I had a member of the family of mine really fly in and tattoo us all in my house, and that was the best and craziest bonding expertise that we may have had,” she says.
The primary two episodes of “Ms. Marvel” are streaming now on Disney+, with new episodes releasing weekly.
