How the Eternals cast became one of Marvel's strangest, sweetest, and most dysfunctional families

Can you really call yourself a family if you don't spend at least a little time playfully bantering over the dinner table?

When EW gathered the cast of Eternals for our Around the Table video series, that's exactly what happened: Marvel's latest epic features Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, Don Lee, Lauren Ridloff, Lia McHugh, and Kumail Nanjiani as part of an ageless squad of superhumans, who've spent the last 7,000 years silently watching over humanity. Joined by costar Kit Harington (who plays human Dane Whitman), they sat down for a wide-ranging conversation about their new forays into superheroism — with plenty of familial teasing along the way. (The cast couldn't even get through the first minute without bickering over who would answer the first question, prompting Jolie to say, "See? We're such a dysfunctional family.")

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has assembled many oddball superhero teams over the years, from the Avengers to the ragtag Guardians of the Galaxy. But Eternals is something new: Directed by recent Oscar winner Chloé Zhao, this ambitious epic spans thousands of years and raises questions about the very nature of human history.

"We're a truly global superhero team," Nanjiani explains. "Usually superheroes have looked very specific, and we sort of look like the world. That was important to Chloé, that this team looks like the world. But more than that, everybody in the movie, all the characters are so different, and everybody brings something. Everybody occupies a different space. It really feels like a family."

Zhao is best known for working with nonprofessional actors and casting them as fictional versions of themselves, as she did in this year's Oscar winner Nomadland. She brought that same sensibility to Eternals, picking actors who she felt had similarities to their roles. (The cast also includes Richard Madden, Gemma Chan, and Brian Tyree Henry.) "I think a lot of us identify in different ways to our characters," Hayek says. "[Chloé] actually cast lovely people — and humble people! I was terrified of Angelina, and she was the nicest!"

Each actor tried to bring something personal to their character, from McHugh drawing on her status as the youngest member of the team to Lee taking inspiration from his own boxing background to help develop fight scenes. That openness, they say, helped bring them closer together.

"What's interesting is that you go into this and think, It's a Marvel film, and you're dressed in these outfits," Jolie explains. "You walk into it that way, and I think what took us by surprise — and what I hope will take the audience by surprise — is that there are very heavy themes in this film. It is very human. It's very much about love and family. What we discovered and why we're so close, I think, is because we did come as ourselves. When we watch the film, we all discover something about ourselves that we didn't even know, and we realized how much we are a family and how natural that is. There are a lot of scenes between us that were as heavy as any drama we've ever done."

Still, not everyone was necessarily flattered by their comparisons to their characters — like Harington, who plays one of the film's few humans.

"Chloé said that from the top, like, 'I've cast you because I feel you represent these characters. Try and play them as close to you as possible,'" the Game of Thrones veteran explains. "And this gave me pause for thought because I'm like, Wait a minute. Richard's like a demigod who shoots lasers out of his eyes, and my guy is a human who works in the Natural History Museum. And I was like, yeah, that kinda makes sense, actually."

Watch the full Eternals Around the Table video above — and stay tuned for even more from the cast early next week.

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