London, UK 22 july 2025 : Actress Vanessa Kirby has expressed profound honor in portraying a pregnant superhero, Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, in Marvel Studios’ highly anticipated film, The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The 37-year-old, who is also currently expecting her first child in real life, stars in the 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic reboot, which marks the iconic team’s entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
The film introduces Marvel’s “First Family” – Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing, and Kirby as Sue Storm – as they navigate their origin story. Following an experimental space flight that exposes them to cosmic rays, they gain extraordinary superhuman abilities and must defend Earth from the cosmic threat of Galactus and his herald, the Silver Surfer.
At its heart, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a story rooted in family, with Sue and Reed preparing for the arrival of their first child. Kirby, a BAFTA winner for her role as Princess Margaret in The Crown, found the concept of a pregnant, working superhero mother “revolutionary.”
“When I first started talking about Sue, I was already so passionate about her,” Kirby told the PA news agency. “It was so exciting to me, this idea of having a pregnant superhero, a working mother. Even in the shooting of it, it was surreal because I had this pregnancy bump, but I was so included in everything.” She added that it was “very daunting” but a “great honour” to play the character.
Kirby also highlighted her appreciation for the film’s unique blend of the mundane and the cosmic. “This was such a combination of domesticity where Reed was smelling Sue’s socks, or Sue was brushing her teeth and then we’d be in the intergalactic, epic cosmos. That, in a way, was the experience we had.”
Pedro Pascal commented on his character, Reed Richards, acknowledging director Matt Shakman’s guidance in navigating Reed’s emotional complexities. “As a father, the only way he (Reed) knows how to handle that is by trying to baby-proof the world rather than be present for the experience,” said the 50-year-old actor. Pascal, who is not a father himself, noted that his favorite aspect of playing Reed was how a person so scientifically brilliant could still struggle with the “far more complicated equations of relationships, family and love.”
This latest iteration follows previous Fantastic Four films, including reboots in 2005 (starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis) and 2015 (with Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B Jordan, Jamie Bell), alongside various animated TV series.
Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps is set to open in UK cinemas on July 24.