Who is Iman Vellani, Marvel’s first Muslim superhero? Disney+’s Ms. Marvel is set to star alongside Brie Larson in The Marvels too – but her fave superhero is actually Iron Man
- The 19-year-old Pakistani-Muslim actress was born in Canada and will make her acting debut in the MCU with Ms. Marvel, a limited television series on Disney+
- In 2019, she worked for Toronto Film Festival’s (TIFF) Next Wave Committee promoting diverse casts, and she is also an avid supporter of the LGBT community
So what do we know about the MCU’s teenage newcomer, who could just be Hollywood’s latest star?
1. She is proud of her Pakistani-Muslim roots
Vellani was born in 2002 to Pakistani-Muslim parents in Ontario, Canada. She’s proud to be cast as the Marvel Universe’s first Muslim hero.
“The fact that the show is being made and they’re including this character in the MCU is [what’s important],” she told Variety. “I don’t really have to go out of my way and talk about being a Muslim and being Pakistani – it all comes out in the show. People seeing a person like me involved in a project as big as this is, I think, inspiring enough.”
2. Ms. Marvel is her acting debut
Ms. Marvel will be Vellani’s first big break. She was scouted in the summer of 2020 when Marvel was testing actors, finding Vellani by late August to early September, per The Hollywood Reporter. Although at the time Vellani had yet to be on the big screen, she had in fact already been behind it, working with a team of students in 2019 for Toronto Film Festival’s (TIFF) Next Wave Committee, according to BuzzFeed. During her experience, she and her peers took part in the selection process of TIFF films that had the potential to resonate with the youth. And the young to-be starlet had an inclination towards more diverse casts.