Yashaswini Dayama on playing Valeria Richards in Marvel’s Wastelanders: ‘Smartest girl in the universe, she’s immortal
In the recently announced Audible Hindi original podcast series, Marvel’s Wastelanders.
Indian artistes take on iconic roles from the superhero universe to tell a futuristic post-apocalyptic tale of destruction and redemption. Yashaswini Dayama will be a part of the podcast series Doctor Doom, along with Ashish Vidyarthi who plays the villain. At an event in Mumbai, the young actor spoke to Hindustan Times about her involvement in the podcast series, her immortal character Valeria Richards and what she hopes to bring to the role.
Yashaswini shared that Valeria is the daughter of Reed Richards aka Mister Fantastic and Susan Storm aka Invisible Woman from the Fantastic Four. She explained, “She is also the goddaughter of Doctor Doom who is one of the biggest villains of the Marvel franchise. She happens to be the smartest girl in the universe and also she’s immortal.
The time and era the show is based in, the battle that happens is called the V-Day, where the villains won. We are 30 years post that battle the normal junta (public) believes that the villains are the heroes and we’ve lost most our heroes. Valeria loses her parents in that battle as well. That’s her backstory and when we catch up to her is when Doctor Doom finally comes into play which is further into the series.”
While the actor couldn’t reveal the plot of the upcoming series, she shared that Valeria joins Doctor Doom on a mission. She said, “Doctor Doom is basically on a revenge path and Valeria is tagging along on that adventure. Her motives are slightly unclear.”
Before she joined Wastelanders, Yashaswini wasn’t as aware of Valeria but hopes the podcast will change that. The actor shared, “She’s a huge character but we’ve not seen her on any other platform. We’ve seen in her in [comics] but I actually didn’t know much about her until I started reading up a little bit because I got the part and she’s very interesting [as] every character has a different origin story.”
Yashaswini and Ashish have yet to begin recording their parts for Doctor Doom. The actor shared that, for now, she was going to listen up to the other stories in the same alternate universe as homework to gear up for time in the studio. She added that she was a Marvel fan from the beginning and enjoys the stories revolving around “Peter Quill because he’s Star Lord and he’s hilarious, obviously Iron Man and Spider-Man”. When asked about any other Marvel character that she would like to play, she replied, “I mean, we’re talking hypothetical. I would love to be the Scarlet Witch. She’s amazing.”
The actor also spoke about Valeria’s immortality which was intriguing to her to portray. Yashaswini said she would try to bring a little bit of herself to Valeria, “What’s really interesting is because she’s immortal, her age is slightly unclear. There is only so much voice modulation I can do, since I’m not properly trained. I can bring some sort of naivety or innocence to her grey mysteriousness which will give her like a little edge, not that she needs any more edges. She’s pretty edgy herself.”
Yashaswini also hoped fans would be up to listening these stories about the Marvel alternate universe in Hindi. She went on to say, “I think we’ve grown out of the rejection age where we used to be when we were younger when we were like, it’s in Hindi, I don’t care about it. We grew up with a lot of that energy. I feel like right now what truly matters is like what story are you telling, how well are you telling it? Language is literally no barrier. I think the audience should be excited and we’ve got such great actors and performers involved. It’s not going to be something that you can just ignore. This is going to be something really fun.”
While she herself doesn’t really listen to many podcasts, she added that she loved the power the medium brings. “I love the audio format because it opens up a whole new world for you, you can imagine whatever you want,” she shared.