In the lead-up to Avengers: Endgame, Marvel fans were encouraged to marathon all of the previous MCU movies to prepare themselves for the saga’s much-hyped culmination, and as it turns out, one of the film’s own cast members approached the production in much the same way.
Emma Fuhrmann took over from Abby Ryder Fortson in the role of Ant-Man’s daughter Cassie Lang. In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, the actress admitted that she hadn’t seen a lot of Marvel movies prior to auditioning, so when she found out that the part was hers, she thought it best to catch herself up:
“Well, so I had only seen a few so when I got the part, I was just like, ‘Okay, homework time.’ I went to Wikipedia and printed out the order of all the Marvel movies, and I watched 20 something movies in order, to just completely just wrap my head around everything — especially Ant-Man. I think I watched Ant-Man of course more than once, just because I used the girl, Abby Ryder, as a foundation for my Cassie, so I really wanted to get a good understanding of that.”
Fuhrmann went on to recall how she didn’t even know what part she was auditioning for at the time, and in the absence of info, her best guess was that she was trying out for a young Black Widow:
“When I auditioned it was June 2017, there was no hype whatsoever about what’s upcoming, so I had no idea who I was auditioning for. I was guessing young Black Widow, because that was the only female character that I could think of that I resembled. I thought I was just auditioning to play a younger version of someone.”
Indeed, the production of Endgame was notoriously secretive, and even the film’s cast members were often kept in the dark on key details. Fuhrmann, for instance, didn’t know the name of the movie or the role she was auditioning for, and even after landing the part, she had to wait until the day of shooting to find out why her character had abruptly aged several years:
“At the time, it was Untitled Avengers Marvel Movie, that’s what I was auditioning for, so I had no idea. I had a fake audition scene, fake character name. When I found out I got the role, I finally found out who I was auditioning for and I had no way of knowing why the character was suddenly so old until the day I showed up on set. It was just very secretive, and not the normal way of doing things.”
Of course, as we now know, Cassie’s sudden growth spurt was due to a five-year time-jump in the early minutes of Avengers: Endgame. This development has further fueled the rumors that Scott’s daughter is soon to become a superhero in her own right, potentially as part of a Young Avengers team. As it stands, Marvel has yet to confirm such hearsay, but perhaps they can offer some clues at next week’s San Diego Comic-Con.