Evangeline Lilly Says Hope Is a Completely Different Person in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania's trailer has certainly gotten Marvel fans' attention! The latest footage for Ant-Man 3 certainly looks epic (and polished) as Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lily), and their families (Hany Pym and Janet van Dyne, along with Cassie Lang) are all sucked into the Quantum Realm by a mysterious force. The Quantum Realm looks like a fantastical new setting for a Marvel movie adventure – and a literal and figurative doorway to some bigger Marvel Cinematic Universe lore. Standing in that doorway and looming large is a fearsome new villain – Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors).
The Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania trailers have certainly done a lot to suggest that Ant-Man will be put through the physical/mental/spiritual ringer by the time the film is done – but what about The Wasp? Evangeline Lily makes it clear that the Hope van Dyne we meet in this third film will be essentially a re-introduction of the character:
"Well, she's a completely different person than when we first met her in the first Ant-Man film," Lily explained to Fandango's Erik Davis. "At that time she was closed, she was cold, she was very isolated; she'd had her heart broken at a very young age, and had just remained a bit of a fortress ever since then. And in the journey that she's gone on in these films, she has really allowed the ice around her heart to melt, as she has repaired her relationship with her father; as she has brought her mother back from the Quantum Realm; as she has fallen in love – and then, also, as she has sort of taken on this mantle of stepmother to Cassie [Lang]. So now her life is the polar opposite of where it was when we first met her. Her life is full of intimacy and relationship, and she also has all the success she ever dreamed of and the super-suit. I mean, nothing can touch her at this point, she's like on top of the world."
That's a poor choice of words, given what we've seen in the Ant-Man 3 trailers; even Evangeline Lily quickly realized what her phrasing implied, adding "...And then the Quantum Realm happens."
Indeed, Just as Hope van Dyne/Wasp is "on top of the world" she gets sucked into a much more vast-yet-smaller world, within the Quantum Realm. A lot of fan theory is focused on the idea of Scott Lang not making it back out alive – but could Hope end up having her perfect life shattered? If her dad Hank (Michael Douglas) and mom Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) die or get lost forever in the Quantum Realm, Hope definitely won't be the same woman we knew, afterward.