When it comes to Italian women I’ve loved my entire life, the list is long. Mainly because I have a large Italian family and if I left off one of my cousins, they’d kill me. But the list of celebrity women who are my Italian icons is simple: Marisa Tomei and Patti LuPone. They’ve both been loves of mine since I was young, and now they’re both in the Marvel Cinematic Universe!
Tomei was Aunt May in Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies, and while she won’t be returning to the world, we have LuPone joining the MCU in Agatha: Coven of Chaos. Prior to LuPone going on television and telling the world exactly who she’s playing, we didn’t know much about the other witches in Agatha (Kathryn Hahn)’s coven—just that we might end up seeing Wanda Maximoff again. But everything has been relatively quiet on the Agatha front. Until now.
LuPone isn’t afraid of talking about who she’s playing. During an appearance on The View, she let Alyssa Farah Griffin know all about Agatha. Without much prompting. Just … willingly giving away details. And it’s why I love LuPone so much. “It’s a coven of witches, and I play Lilia Calderu, who apparently is in the Marvel world. I researched her, she’s hot, she’s really hot, she’s got a great body and hair,” LuPone said. “I didn’t know there were witches, I didn’t know anything about the Marvel world. There are witches in the Marvel world. So, we are a coven of witches and the witches are: Kathryn Hahn, Aubrey Plaza, and [a] Familiar—if anybody knows Heartstopper—is Joe Locke.”
Calderu is hot. She is also “a 450-year-old Sicilian witch whose power is divination and whose trial is tarot.” But let’s talk a bit more about Lilia.
Here’s to the Sicilian witches
Charged with maintaining the Book of Cagliostro, Lilia Calderu ends up getting seduced by a man named Baron Mordo (played in the Doctor Strange movies by Chiwetel Ejiofor) and the two have a daughter before he steals the book from her. Their daughter Astrid goes on to seek revenge for her mother from Baron Mordo, and that’s pretty much all we know about her. And honestly? LuPone is right. She’s hot. It’s also very Italian to try to get revenge for someone wronging you. Very Italian and very Scorpio of her (like me!).
I just love this a lot. Given that Lilia Calderu in the comics looks the way a lot of the witches of comic book lore do (i.e., young with her boobs hanging out), I like that LuPone is playing her and bringing a different kind of sex appeal to the role. If you’ve ever seen LuPone work (either on stage or on screen), she has this captivating way about her that just ropes you in and would be perfect for a Marvel witch. Especially one like Lilia.
This is weirdly the first time that I really want my mom to watch the MCU now? Mainly because I think she’s going to love seeing a Sicilian witch on screen. This one is for you, gramps. You woulda loved Patti LuPone as a Sicilian witch.
(featured image: Axelle / Bauer-Griffin / FilmMagic, Getty Images)
