Tell me a small bit about Shazam. Anthea is your character’s name, correct?

Yeah, lots of individuals imagine it’s Athena. But it is Anthea, thank you.

Of training course. How is she unique from some of the characters you’ve performed ahead of?

I experience like a large amount of the figures I have played in advance of have a amazing arc, but they’re a little bit clear-cut from the word go. You just take a character like Maria from West Aspect Tale, and you know that she’s got a excellent coronary heart, a attractive outlook on the earth. She desires to convey two opposing groups together. It can be just extremely uncomplicated. And she learns a minimal little bit far more about the planet as the tale goes on. With Anthea, it’s a little bit more intricate due to the fact she’s lived in the shadow of her sisters for X amount of a long time. Her sisters, of program, are performed by Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu. Ever listened to of them?

Just some tiny-known actors.

Just some up-and-coming actors who have promising careers. So she thinks she is aware every little thing about the world previously since of the way that it can be informed to her by her older sisters. Throughout the class of the film, you kind of fully grasp that she has ideas of her own, and she desires to convey them not only to the relaxation of the world but to the Shazamily, who she’s appear to know via distinct conditions. So I’ve just really loved participating in her due to the fact she was way extra layered than I even expected her to be, and it just designed me all the a lot more enthusiastic to just take on the aspect.

What intrigued you about executing this sort of an motion-weighty challenge?

It was the reality that I failed to have to do a large amount of motion. No, you know, it’s actually amusing since I was begging stunts to, like, let me do something, but I truly didn’t do any stunts. It wasn’t until eventually I went to get the job done on Snow White—which is, imagine it or not, extremely stunt significant for me—and then Starvation Video games, which is a bit a lot more definitely stunt hefty, that I essentially got to flex that muscle mass I didn’t even really know I had. When you are carrying out a motion picture like West Facet Tale, my only stunt was standing on a hearth escape that was 4 or five stories up, and I experienced a stunt double for that day. I was like, “Is this ridiculous?” And it is not. You know, some people do not like heights. Some people today are frightened and have to dress in a bungee cord when they’re on the fireplace escape. But for this born-and-bred New Yorker, it felt a bit substantially.

But on Shazam, I did not have to do any of my have stunts. I seriously only had just one stunt, which is in the trailer the place I get blown back again from this bolt of lightning. And that was my stunt double. Her title was Maria, oddly adequate. She was super amazing. She did it time and again. I just viewed her get slammed against concrete a bunch of times, and I would just run out in among each individual consider and be like, “Hold in there, buddy.” She was great. She was much more than happy to do it. But I failed to definitely have to do a great deal of the major lifting when it arrived to stunt and action perform on Shazam.

Do you want to do additional projects like Shazam in the long term?

We’ve been talking about this lately because the film is coming out extremely soon. DJ Cotrona, who performs superhero Pedro, and I were being talking about it. We’re like, “I just want to do a third 1 so undesirable.” Obviously, the long term of DC is unclear as of suitable now. We’re the men and women who were below ahead of the personnel change occurred. We do not genuinely know what’s likely to happen. And which is all good and fantastic. We of course have faith in James and Peter, who are now at the forefront of DC. But DJ and I are just like, “Guy, we just seriously want to do a 3rd one.” I come to feel like they could get into some genuine superior jinks. Whether or not I’d even be in a third 1 would be in problem as very well. Nonetheless, I would enjoy to see extra flicks like Shazam in the long term. And I would also just actually enjoy to do some pleasurable, lighthearted… Most of my profession has just been me crying around dead bodies and shit. I’m just actually completely ready to have some enjoyable.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.