NEED TO KNOW
Vanessa Kirby is revealing what it’s like filming Avengers: Doomsday while pregnant.
On the latest episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Fantastic Four: First Steps star, 37, opened up about how it’s been filming the latest installment of the Avengers franchise while pregnant. She said it’s the “coolest thing” to shoot the movie, adding that the cast and crew have been “utterly amazing.”
“As you know, I’m pregnant and it’s been the coolest thing to be shooting an Avengers movie while pregnant, and they’ve been utterly amazing,” she said, before referring to the movie’s directors, the Russo Brothers, as well as Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. “The Russos and Kevin and the whole team. It’s been very cool to do that.”
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Kirby first confirmed she was pregnant and expecting her first baby with boyfriend Paul Rabil when she walked the red carpet in a form-fitting dress for the CCXPMX Film Festival in Mexico City in May 2025. While posing, she held her bump.
A couple of weeks later, Rabil shared the happy news on Instagram alongside a photo of him holding her stomach.
“Some news…life’s greatest adventure is beginning soon,” the former lacrosse player wrote in the caption. “We’re very grateful for your love and support. Especially the advice. Mum’s a superhero. I’m just really lucky.”
During her appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Wednesday, July 23, the actress opened up about the differences between having an actual baby bump versus using a fake belly for her role in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. In the latest Marvel film, she stars as the superhero Sue Storm (a.k.a. Invisible Woman), who becomes pregnant by Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards (a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic).
“I honestly think a lot of people think it’s a stunt of some kind. It’s just crazy timing,” Kirby said before detailing what went into creating her pregnancy on-screen. “Essentially, the fake belly is like a foam thing. When it’s a foam, it feels very light and a bit silly. So I kept saying to Flick, who looks after my costume, ‘I want more. It needs to be heavier.’ ”
“So we would try all these different things and eventually she kind of put heavy rice packets in the belly and it got so heavy, [and] I got really bad backache,” she revealed. “And actually it’s nothing like this. This is … way lighter. So, I gave myself a backache for no reason at all.”
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In an interview with PEOPLE, Kirby said she admires the journey her character goes on throughout the Marvel film. “Sue was never sat down. She was never huffing and puffing about it,” she said of her character’s pregnancy.
“It didn’t define who she was,” the Eden actress continued. “She was absolutely a mother, and of course, in the comics, that’s so definitively her. But she’s also been a team member that defends, that goes up against great threats.”
“I literally had the lived experience of somebody who was doing this incredibly sacred thing and fulfilling what she needed to do at the same time as a woman and a team member, and that changed me,” she added.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps hits theaters this weekend. Avengers: Doomsday is scheduled to open on Dec. 18, 2026.
