Marvel’s Eternals is an ensemble piece, and everyone has their favorites. It was a tight call, but in the end, I wound up falling in love with Angelina Jolie’s Thena, who was serving Amazon realness with the snark and grace that made Jolie an action star when I was growing up.
During a recent interview with Brazil’s CinePop (via Collider), Jolie said that she would love to play Thena again, but not without her family of Eternals by her side.
“I loved being part of the family, so I have no desire to separate from the family,” Jolie said. “But I would be happy to play her again and explore even more deeply the struggles that she has. I think it’s fun thinking of where they’ve been over the years. We’ve got thousands of years worth of material. We can take her anywhere. I think that’s fun and I like the idea that we can pop up somewhere, maybe in other Marvel movies.”
That would be fun to explore, especially because I’m Team Thena x Gilgamesh, so I would want to go back in time and see about their years in exile from the rest of the group.
Without going too much into spoilers, it was refreshing to see the film deal with some deeper aspects of being a long-lived creature. We know Thor is going to live for thousands of years, but there has been no real weight given to that kind of existence for him in the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far.
In Eternals, we get to see a family of beings trying to grow and change, but still be burdened with what that means if you can’t actually evolve and grow.
According to ComicBook.com, Thena was original only supposed to be a small role, with Jolie delivering a cameo. Over time, as the story developed, according to producer Nate Moore, the role became much bigger.
“When we first talked to her, I think she thought, well, I know she thought we wanted her for a very, very small cameo,” Moore said. “So she was sort of surprised at the size of the role, and really threw herself into Thena and creating a movement style for Thena and a fighting style for Thena that was unique.”
That worked onscreen perfectly.
While Jolie has a fantastically chaotic filmography, one thing I have found is that she throws herself into every performance, even ones that don’t appreciate her. I loved how she did eventually melt into the character of Thena and was allowed to have this very warrior-centric story, while getting one of the best love stories in Marvel.
Not bad for her first entry into the MCU, and I can’t wait to see what comes next. I could absolutely see Thena and Gilgamesh having hung out with Xu Wenwu from Shang-Chi at some point.
(via Comicbook, image: Marvel)
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