Iman Vellani (born September 3, 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan) is a Pakistani-Canadian actress who is currently playing Kamala Khan a.k.a. Ms. Marvel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, her very first acting role.
Vellani's family moved to Ontario when she was one year old, and by the time she graduated high school, she intended to become a filmmaker. All that changed when her aunt notified her of the casting call for Kamala, and Vellani impulsively decided to film herself and send in an audition tape. Her performance immediately attracted the attention of MCU casting director Sarah Halley Finn, who brought Vellani to the Marvel Studios office in Los Angeles for an in-person audition, and after a second audition done remotely, she won the part.
Despite her relative inexperience, Vellani's performance as Kamala has received near-universal acclaim from critics and fans alike, bolstered by her authentic and extremely in-character love for the source material (she dressed up as Kamala for Halloween when she was 15, and has gone as far as jokingly insisting to Kevin Feige that the Inhuman character Lockjaw should be made part of the character's mythos), with Kamala coming so naturally to her that many fans joke she is not so much acting as she is just goofing off as herself.
Vellani reprised her role as Kamala/Ms. Marvel in the 2023 film The Marvels, alongside Brie Larson as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel and Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau. She is also writing her comic book counterpart in Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant, alongside Ms. Marvel series writer Sabir Pirzada.
Works she has appeared in:
- A Fan's Guide to Ms. Marvel (2022 documentary) as herself
- Marvel Cinematic Universe as Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel
- Ms. Marvel (2022)
- The Marvels (2023)
- Marvel Zombies (2024)
Works she has written:
- Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant (2023), co-written with Sabir Pirzada
- Ms. Marvel: Mutant Menace (2024), co-written with Sabir Pirzada
Associated tropes:
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Iman's admitted to having a burner account on Reddit so she can contribute to Marvel Comics related subreddits anonymously. This led to other Redditors saying hello in threads on the off chance that she sees it.
- Irony as She Is Cast: Though her character Kamala Khan is characterized as a diehard Captain Marvel fangirl, Vellani herself only gave the movie two out of five stars on Letterboxd
though she claimed she would “sacrifice [her] own life…for Brie Larson”. - Promoted Fangirl: Like you wouldn't believe.
- Vellani is a huge Marvel fan with an encyclopedic knowledge of both comic-book and MCU canon. She exchanges emails with Kevin Feige and has said that she comments on the sub-Reddit r/marvelstudios under an unknown throwaway account. This has led to people routinely saying hello to her in threads. She also keeps a journal absolutely stuffed with MCU trivia on her at all times which she is not at all afraid to whip out whenever she feels the filmmakers are playing fast and loose with the continuity, much to Feige's chagrin. She also provided context to Brie Larson and Teyonah Parris on the set of The Marvels whenever the two had questions about their characters.
- She later got the opportunity to co-write a Ms. Marvel comic in 2023, thus making her even more promoted than when she was simply playing Kamala.
