'VisionQuest' Star Officially Breaks Silence on Her Character's Avengers Movie Future

Six episodes into VisionQuest, it's clear Marvel’s latest show has a lot going on. In addition to seeing the evolution of characters like Vision (Paul Bettany) and Ultron (James Spader), we saw the death of J.A.R.V.I.S. (James D’Arcy), and the rebirth of Tommy Maximoff (Ruaridh Mollica). The show is also giving us the origins of Jocasta (T’Nia Miller), Paladin (Todd Stashwick), and Lisa Molinari (Lauren Morais), the latter becomes the character Coat of Arms in Marvel Comics.

In the comic books, Lisa Molinari is also linked to Tommy Maximoff, having spent time with him in a juvenile detention center. Once released, she struggles to adjust to life in the real world until she discovers a magical cloak named Tiboro's Coat, which grants her the ability to fly and, more notably, four extra arms. Adopting the identity Coat of Arms, Lisa joins the villain team the Young Masters, though her allegiance is often shifting in the comics from good to evil to somewhere in between. Part of the reason for her ambiguous loyalties is that she views the hero/villain struggle as a kind of performance art, which makes her very unpredictable.

In VisionQuest, we have yet to see Lisa Molinari with any extra appendages, but in one of the trailers, she is shown with two extra robotic arms coming out of what looks like a high-tech backpack. This means Coat of Arms, or at least some early version of her, is coming. And, when Lauren Morais sat down with Polygon, that’s precisely what we wanted to talk about.

Polygon: When you got cast as Lisa Molinari, what kind of research did you do?

Lauren Morais: I read the comics, which gave really good insight into her. What got me the most was the fact that she was an artist, and how she sees superheroes as almost performance art. I used that and her questioning of that. She's quite a tough cookie, but also she has an empathetic side to her.

It’s mostly the comics, but then getting to know Ruaridh while doing the scenes helped. Lisa and Tommy were getting to know each other, that was the start of it, and I think it was a very appropriate and useful start to the whole process.

Lisa is a character that’s been a villain, a hero, and an anti-hero. I’m curious what you’d like to see happen with the character in the future.

I would definitely love to see her wrestle with villainy and superheroism, and what happens to her relationship to Tommy as she does that, because she's been through so much with Tommy in VisionQuest. It'd be interesting to see how she gets to that point and why she starts questioning what it all means. I think the Young Masters route is a really cool route as well. That would be sick.

What was it like for you doing your first fight scene with those extra arms?

It was so fun. We did a lot of rehearsals and fight choreography and some boxing. They were like, “You need to picture where this arm is going to hit,” which was really funny. As an actress, you have to be like, “Okay, I think it's gonna hit your face, so I'm going to have to angle my shoulder this way.”

Paul [Bettany] was like, “You're going to feel really silly doing it, but if you commit to it, it will look amazing afterwards,” and he was right.

I'd never done fight scenes of that caliber before, having fake hands and extra arms. You're not going to get more Marvel than having two extra fake robotic arms, so that was a really cool moment for me.

What was your reaction to the fight scenes with the extra arms when you first saw them?

I saw them first in post. I had to do a bit of ADR and I saw a rough version of it. I was so gagged by it. I was like, “You are kidding,” because you have a picture of it in your head, but it looks a thousand times better when you see it in person. You spend so much time with this character and so much time imagining the arms, that seeing them in real life was such a surreal experience.

Then I saw it properly, with all the effects afterwards and I so chuffed. Paul Bettany was right; you do have to commit and then it looks really cool.

What was Paul Bettany like to work with?

So joyous. So funny. We have so many jokes on set. He was very welcoming and he understood that it was my first massive job. I think I was one of the last ones to be cast of the main cast and he really took me under his wing. He had a good balance of being really fun and funny to work with, but also, you can see that he had a deep commitment and regard for Vision's story. It was lovely seeing that passion, while also being an amazing number one on set. I think that's a real testimony to him. Everyone in the crew and the actors had so much fun working with him.

My last question for you is if we can expect to see you in maybe Avengers: Doomsday or Secret Wars.

Wow, I think we should concentrate on VisionQuest first. We've got two episodes left. We've got an amazing finale ahead. I think we've got enough going on.

VisionQuest is streaming now on Disney Plus.