Iman Vellani is a Pakistani Canadian actress. She became a Marvel superhero and made her on-screen debut with an OTT mini-series that was released on 8 June 2022. She is also cast for the next Marvel film, The Marvels.
Wiki/Biography
Iman Vellani was born on Tuesday, 3 September 2002 (age 19 years; as of 2021) in Karachi, Pakistan. Her parents migrated to Canada with her when she was one year old. She completed her graduation at Unionville High School in Ontario, Canada.
Physical Appearance
Height (approx.): 5′ 6″
Hair Colour: Dark Brown
Eye Colour: Brown
Family & Ethnicity
Iman Vellani is from a Muslim family.
Parents & Siblings
Vellani’s father is an accountant and her mother is a nurse practitioner. Her brother is six years older than her and works as an engineer.
Husband & Children
N/A
Career
In 2019, she was selected as the TIFF Next Wave Committee member at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Iman Vellani with TIFF Next Wave Committee
The Ms. Marvel series was announced in August 2019. Vellani gave a Zoom audition for the main character and her audition was highlighted by Sana Amanat who is a character developer at Marvel and the co-creator of Kamala Khan’s character. In 2020, she directed two short films including Push and I don’t wanna b alone. In September 2020, Vellani cleared the auditions for the role of Kamala Khan a superhero in Ms. Marvel which is a Disney+ and Marvel Studio mini-series. In this mini-series, she co-starred with Yasmeen Fletcher, Mohan Kapur, Laurel Marsden, Matt Lintz, Azhar Usman, Zenobia Shroff, and Saagar Shaikh. Iman is from a Muslim family and in the series, she played Marvel’s first Muslim Superhero. Once she talked about this experience and said,
Growing up, I felt very disconnected from my culture and religion because I grew up in Canada. I didn’t have any brown friends that weren’t from my mosque and I didn’t hang out with them. Filming the show, I learned so much about my ancestry. That’s such a special thing I get to share with the character, and that’s because I was working with so many incredible creators who were from a Muslim or Pakistani background.
Iman Vellani in the first episode of Ms. Marvel series
In June 2022, she also appeared in A Fan’s Guide to Ms. Marvel which was a short documentary film featuring interviews with the filmmaking team and Vellani. On 8 June she made her on-screen debut. The mini-series and Vellani’s performance both were praised by the audience and received numerous positive reviews. This miniseries is released as a part of the fourth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is created to form a base for The Marvels which is the next movie of this franchise. Vellani is also cast in the film The Marvels which is expected to release on 28 July 2023.
Favourites
- Film Producer: Kevin Feige
Facts/Trivia
- She is a big fan of Iron Man and can recite the first five minutes of the First sequel of Iron Man.
- In her entire bedroom, she has Marvel posters all around. In her Zoom call audition for Ms. Marvel, she showed her entire room to the Co-executive producer Sana Amanat. In an Interview Amanat said,
She showed me every corner of her room, and it was covered with Avengers. Then she said, ‘Oh wait, I’m not done’, opened up her closet, and there was more Marvel everywhere.’
- In her teenage years, she read Ms. Marvel an American comic book and became a huge fan of Kamal Khan’s character. After playing the lead role in Ms. Marvel series, she talked about it and said,
She felt so much like me, and a lot of that comes from not just her background and ethnicity but because she’s such a fan of the Marvel universe, too.’
- After graduation, she had plans to attend the Ontario College of Art & Design University to study integrated media but couldn’t do it.