Evangeline Lilly explains how Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman influenced Wasp

Evangeline Lilly is a hardcore Michelle Pfeiffer fan. The Lost alum can hardly contain herself when she talks about Pfeiffer joining the cast of Ant-Man and the Wasp and portraying Janet van Dyne, mother to Lilly’s superhero, Hope van Dyne.

As Lilly told us on the Atlanta set of Marvel’s Wasp, she and her sisters grew up celebrating the Pfeiffer’s entire catalog — especially the less, uh, celebrated titles. “My sisters are obsessed with Ladyhawke,” she said. “We were huge fans of Grease 2, of Married to the Mob. All of the less-cool things she did, those were our favorites. Not like Scarface, or the Academy Award-nominated, impressive movies. We were the ones who wanted to see Married to the Mob over and over again.”

Lilly also fantasized about being Catwoman, the femme fatale Pfeiffer immortalized on the big screen in 1992’s Batman Returns. “When I was a little girl, some little girls were pretending to be Supergirl,” Lilly told us at the film’s recent Los Angeles press day (watch video above). “I was pretending to be Catwoman, Michelle Pfeiffer-Catwoman.”

The actress, whose Wasp becomes the first female superhero to get title billing in a Marvel Cinematic Universe film, didn’t directly take from Catwoman for her portrayal of the shrinking, winged heroine, but there’s no doubt she was influenced by Pfeiffer’s ownership of the role.

“What I thought was incredible about Catwoman was she was so clearly in control of her persona and autonomous and strong and powerful and independent, and yet she was fiercely sexy,” Lilly said.

“I think there’s a great power in embracing that and saying, ‘It’s not one or the other.’ That women are allowed to be fully female and fully feminine and also that makes them powerful. Not that they powerful in spite of being a woman. I feel like she did that with Catwoman, and I wanted to do that with the Wasp.”

Watch Lilly talk about how a talent scout tried to recruit her… on her way to doing Ant-Man and the Wasp press:

Read more on Yahoo Entertainment: