Evangeline Lilly on how she “challenged” herself to speak up on the ‘Ant-Man and The Wasp’ set

Fronting that step forward is Evangeline Lilly, who many know as the tough airplane-crash survivor Kate on ABC’s aughts cult TV hit Lost. Lilly doesn’t step out for just any role these days, having briefly retired from the industry, published a children’s book series, developed more writing projects and started a family since Lost ended. She’s choosy: The Hobbit series, where she played Tauriel, gave her the chance to be a woodland elf who could rival Legolas in wielding a bow-and-arrow. 2015’s Ant-Man offered her the possibility to become a superheroine. In its sequel, she realizes that promise by donning a suit and demonstrating her fighting ability (outside Ant-Man’s single training sequence).

Even after receiving equal billing, however, the actress fought to empower her character scene-by-scene. As Lilly described it to The Hollywood Reporter in an interview, her character Hope van Dyne had the potential to “school marm-ish”; Lilly wanted to make sure she could be competent and take a joke, too. Read the full conversation below.