Gemma Chan was shocked to land role in Eternals so soon after Captain Marvel

Gemma Chan was shocked to be offered a role in Eternals so soon after she appeared in Captain Marvel.

The 38-year-old actress played villain Minn-Erva opposite Brie Larson in the 2019 superhero blockbuster, and her character was killed by Lashana Lynch's fighter pilot Maria Rambeau towards the end of the film.

To her surprise, she was offered the role of immortal alien superhuman Sersi in the upcoming movie The Eternals, and revealed studio boss Kevin Feige was behind the decision to bring her back to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

"My character dies in (Captain Marvel), so I thought there was no chance that I would really be coming back, which I was a bit bummed about," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "But then I encountered Kevin Feige during the awards circuit for Crazy Rich Asians and out of the blue, he just came up and said, ‘We'd love to have you back. We’d love to make better use of you. We want you to do something else, so let’s find that project.’

"But, to be honest, I had no idea that it would be so soon," she admitted.

Gemma appears alongside the likes of Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden and Salma Hayek in The Eternals, and she revealed that director Chloe Zhao went back to basics when creating the big screen version of the much-loved comic book.

"It’s a really epic story. Very ambitious. I feel like it’s going to be a superhero movie that is not like a superhero movie," Gemma shared, noting that the filmmaker tried to avoid using a lot of special effects. "That sounds like a very obvious thing to say, but they’re trying to do something different with this film. We shot a lot on location, using a lot of natural light."

Eternals is set top be released in November 2021.