Throughout the first season of The Umbrella Academy, Ellen Page‘s Vanya had a rough go of things. The outcast of the Hargreeves family, she soon found herself as the crux of the entire apocalypse and the destroyer of the moon after embracing her powers and becoming The White Violin. At the start of season two though Vanya finds herself trapped in the past, separated from her siblings, and without any memory of her powers or an apocalypse. For Page though this didn’t seem like what she signed up for, as the actress has very openly expressed that a big reason she came to the series was being able to play the character for an extended amount of time. So how did this version stack up?
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“I really enjoyed it,” Page told ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview. “I mean, it felt so nice to play a Vanya that was lighter. The end of the first season she gets a lot off her chest. It doesn’t help the world. She does blow up the moon, but she, she’s so she’s very different.”
She continued, “And I guess as an actor, the way I approached it as well, How does she exist in her body now? How does she relate to people? How does she talk? All these different ways of showing a sort of openness and the journey continues playing this character and I love it. Her falling in love for the first time and shooting the season was a complete and utter joy. So I feel very lucky.”
We also spoke with Page’s co-star and in-series sister Emmy Raver-Lampman, whose character is also in a new place at the start of season two. Despite having her throat cut by Page’s Vanya, Raver-Lampman’s character finds herself able to speak as the new season begins, the circumstances of which become clear.
“I had a feeling (it would happen),” she said. “Because Steve Blackman our showrunner kind of at the end of the first season, he was like, ‘Trust me, we get a second season, you will speak again.’ It was kind of like, ‘I’m sorry that I’m doing this to you now but like it’s not gonna be forever.; So I had a feeling they were gonna figure out a way to kind of explain how I got my voice back. And then also like, let time pass probably.”
Set to premiere on Netflix on Friday, July 31, the official description for The Umbrella Academy season two can be found below. The first season of the Emmy nominated series is now streaming.
“Five warned his family (so, so many times) that using his powers to escape from Vanya’s 2019 apocalypse was risky. Well, he was right – the time jump scatters the siblings in time in and around Dallas, Texas. Over a three year period. Starting in 1960. Some, having been stuck in the past for years, have built lives and moved on, certain they’re the only ones who survived. Five is the last to land, smack dab in the middle of a nuclear doomsday, which – spoiler alert! – turns out is a result of the group’s disruption of the timeline (déjà vu, anyone?). Now the Umbrella Academy must find a way to reunite, figure out what caused doomsday, put a stop to it, and return to the present timeline to stop that other apocalypse. All while being hunted by a trio of ruthless Swedish assassins. But seriously, no pressure or anything.”
The Umbrella Academy also stars Tom Hopper, David Castañeda. Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, and Justin H. Min.
