Ant-Man actress Evangeline Lilly has slammed the recent layoffs at The Walt Disney Company that affected staff at Marvel Studios, including senior members of its visual development team.
According to a memo sent by Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro on April 14, the company implemented job cuts across divisions, as per The Hollywood Reporter. The report added that around 1,000 roles were eliminated.
Marvel Studios was among the affected units, with layoffs including longtime visual development artist Andy Park.
In an Instagram video, Lilly said, “I reached out to my good friend Andy Park, who was the genius behind creating the original Wasp super-suit and the original Wasp concept drawings for the film Ant-Man and the Wasp, and just said, ‘Is this true? Is this really what’s happening?'.”
“And he said, ‘Yeah, it’s true. I have been let go.’ And I can’t quite believe that, that Disney has let go of the artists who brought the Marvel Universe to life through their imagination and their genius,” she added.
Park had worked with Marvel for nearly two decades, contributing to films like Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, Avengers: Endgame. He also worked on its upcoming sequel Avengers: Doomsday.
Lilly also expressed concern over the potential use of artificial intelligence in creative roles. She said she was shocked that “the people who invented these characters, who designed them in the first place, are now being replaced by AI”.
It remains unclear whether Disney plans to use AI in such capacities. The Hollywood Reporter said it had contacted Marvel Studios for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.
“AI that will take their designs and take what those artists created and use it to create iterations of that,” Lilly continued.
In the caption accompanying her post, Lilly directly addressed Disney, writing, “SHAME ON YOU for turning your back on the people who built the power you are now using to throw them away.”
“Where are the laws that REMOVE all human art from the AI bank?!? Why do they get to steal our brilliance and use it to make executives rich while the artists responsible for feeding their robots go hungry?? Disgusting,” she wrote. “California lawmakers…where are you?!?!?”
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Lilly joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2015 as Hope van Dyne, also known as the Wasp, in Ant-Man. She reprised the role in Ant-Man and the Wasp and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, as well as appearing in Avengers: Endgame.
In 2024, Lilly announced on social media that she was stepping away from acting. She is not part of the cast list for Avengers: Doomsday, scheduled for release in December, although her co-stars Paul Rudd and Kathryn Newton are set to appear.
