“Ant-Man and the Wasp” star Evangeline Lilly revealed on Instagram that she was among the protesters at a rally in Washington this past weekend opposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
The post included black-and-white pictures taken at what appears to be the same rally where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust saying, “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.” Kennedy later apologized on Twitter for the remarks after his sister, Kerry, and his wife, Cheryl Hines, publicly distanced themselves from his comments.
“I was in DC this weekend to support bodily sovereignty while Canadian truckers were rallying for their cross-country, peaceful convoy in support of the same thing,” she wrote. “I believe nobody should ever be forced to inject their body with anything, against their will.”
“This is not the way,” she continued. “This is not safe. This is not healthy. This is not love. I understand the world is in fear, but I don’t believe that answering fear with force will fix our problems. I was pro-choice before COVID and I am still pro-choice today.”
Lilly, who plays Hope Van Dyne in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is the second Marvel Studios star to come out against vaccine mandates. In December 2020, “Black Panther” star Letitia Wright posted a link to a YouTube video questioning the safety of vaccines, particularly COVID-19 vaccines which at the time had just been approved for emergency use.
Lilly has not disclosed whether she has been vaccinated. In March 2020, she posted a message saying she would not adhere to social distancing guidelines and compared COVID-19 to a “respiratory flu.” “It’s unnerving… Let’s be vigilant right now. And kind. Watchful and gracious — keeping a close eye on our leaders, making sure they don’t abuse this moment to steal away more freedoms and grab more power,” she wrote in a statement that she later apologized for.
Over the past 13 months, over 250 million Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, with 84 million receiving two doses as well as a booster shot. While many local and state governments have vaccine requirements for various businesses, an attempt by the Biden Administration to implement a nationwide mandate for large companies was blocked by the Supreme Court, with the court’s conservative majority handing down the majority ruling.
Lilly is set to star in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which has completed production and is set for release in July 2023