Michelle Pfeiffer on How Marvel’s Intense Secrecy Makes Movies Difficult

Michelle Pfeiffer shares her feelings about how difficult making movies for the MCU can be with Marvel Studios’ intense secrecy. The venerable actor had a long career in Hollywood before stepping into one of the biggest film franchises of all time. After making her on-screen debut in 1978, appearing in an episode of Fantasy Island, Pfeiffer began a long lucrative career in the entertainment industry, starring in films such as Grease 2, Scarface, The Witches of Eastwick, and Batman Returns. The actor joined the MCU late into its third phase as Janet van Dyne, wife of Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and mother of Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), in Ant-Man and the Wasp. She will return to the role in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

In Ant-Man 2, Pfeiffer’s Janet finds herself rescued from the Quantum Realm by Hank Pym as a result of messages sent to Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) due to his quantum entanglement from his previous time down at the sub-atomic level. Janet uses energy she gained from her experience in the Quantum Realm to save the suffering Ava Starr (Hannah John-Kamen) by restoring her molecular stability. After being “snapped” by Thanos, Pfeiffer returns in Avengers: Endgame as part of the massive ensemble cast to battle the mad Titan for the fate of the universe.

In a recent interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Pfeiffer has revealed the difficulty of making movies under Marvel Studio’s intense level of secrecy. When asked by host Jimmy Fallon if the Pfeiffer has been told if she will be in more Ant-Man films, most likely in an attempt to have the star divulge if her character will die in the upcoming film, the actor responded that the studio keeps her in the dark as much as possible. Read what Pfeiffer had to say below.

“No. No. No. They’re very mysterious. And you know they’re very secretive, of course, of their storylines and all of that. So secretive…It’s a little hard because, you know, I met with [director Peyton Reed] and I knew a little bit about the character and there was no script. And you have to commit without actually having read anything.”

Pfeiffer reveals that she has never had this level of secrecy on any other movie project in her career before working with Marvel. The actor explained that she found it hard to prepare for her role as the script changed frequently, even after the film was seemingly completed. Pfeiffer added, “You don’t really know what you’re getting into and you get a script right before you start shooting and it all changes, and then it changes every day…and then you shoot the movie and you wrap and it changes again.” Fallon related her experience with Marvel to his own while working on the long-running live variety show Saturday Night Live in which he was told to never memorize his lines due to the fact that sketches change so often, and can even change the night of the show.

For any highly-anticipated story, whether it be a film, television show, or book, keeping plot details secret has become an increasingly difficult yet important task. With the advent of the internet and the ubiquity of social media, the challenge of withholding spoilers from the public is only getting harder. Marvel Studios is famous for keeping their employees under strict non-disclosure agreements, going so far as to have Amazing Spider-Man‘s Andrew Garfield continue to lie about his involvement in Spider-Man: No Way Home even though leaked footage that clearly shows the actor in a brand-new scene was spreading all over the internet. Although the level of secrecy that Marvel takes to keep its stories under lock and key is quite severe, affecting an actor’s ability to memorize their lines well in advance, it is necessary to maintain a certain amount of surprise for their fans. Michelle Pfeiffer will return to the role of Janet van Dyne in the upcoming film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which is slated for a summer 2023 release.