Warning: The interview below contains spoilers for Eternals, streaming now on Disney+ and Digital.

Director Chloé Zhao's Eternals is one of the more ambitious films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Juggling moral logic and a vast cast, Eternals interweaves MCU's standard action set-pieces with heady themes and heart. At the core of the film is Lia McHugh's Sprite, a forever youthful trickster and illusionist who -- by the modern-day -- has grown tired of her cosmic distance from humanity. McHugh's Sprite is one of the more complex characters of the film, juggling her feelings for her fellow Eternals with a slew of pent-up emotions.

Ahead of the Eternals' release to home video, Lia McHugh looked back at her performance as Sprite. During an exclusive interview with CBR, McHugh reflected on what it was like to step into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, what she thinks Sprite would be like if she gets the chance to return to Earth, and the trick to balancing the Eternals' bombast and humanity.

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Sprite using her powers in Eternals

CBR: Across the course of production, was there anything that caught you by surprise about Sprite that you hadn't realized about the character starting out?

Lia McHugh: I think her relationships with all of the other characters caught me by surprise. A lot of the stuff that happened during filming -- like some of the relationships and the connections that people had with each other was unexpected, and it wasn't exactly scripted. I think some of the moments that I had with the other actors.

Kumail's and my relationship became so much better once we started filming and it did catch me by surprise. I don't mean this in a bad way, but when I met him, I didn't expect to love him. He seemed serious and I was like, "Oh, he's so serious. I don't know how I'm going to feel about this guy." But he's actually hilarious. We match each other's energy perfectly. We're really good friends now but I think that was a bit unexpected. He's literally a comedian every day of his life. It's great. Makes everyone laugh.

Because of the sheer size of the cast of Eternals, everybody gets a little bit of interplay together, and everyone gets one or two pairings, but was there any character that you really wish you would've gotten more one-on-one scenes together?

I really liked Ajak and Sprite's relationship. Sprite became vulnerable with her, and I think Ajak was the only one who really understood and knew Sprite more so than the other Eternals. I think you see that. There's a really sweet moment when we're dancing in the kitchen, and you see how much she means to Sprite. I think seeing more of that would've been really sweet, to see more of the vulnerable side of Sprite.

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Something that extends to the whole cast is that the Eternals are deceptively complex but also very straightforward in a surprising, simple way. They're so defined by these very clear motivations that have layers within them. That's the trick, I think, to having such a big cast and it still working as well as it did.

That's Chloé's brilliance, honestly.

Sprite is a character who wants affection. She wants to be accepted. She wants to be loved. Ajak gave that to her without any restraints, but Ikaris can't give it to her the way she wants him to. How did you ground that very human aspect of the character with the bombast of the Marvel-ness of the film around her?

Chloé had a very clear vision, which is super helpful. She's so brilliant. She's probably one of my favorite directors I've worked with. She's had such a clear vision and knew what she wanted from each of us in every scene. So it was a comfort knowing that she was there to keep us on track and keep us where we needed to go. But it was also a lot of preparation. So many times, we would all meet together in her office and we would just order food and we'd be there for hours and go over sides or improv or get to know each other.

There were times that Chloé would just come into my trailer and we would run stuff... That's the challenge of a Marvel movie. It's such a crazy scale. You have the moments where I'm being vulnerable and then when I'm fighting a Deviant, it's a bit of a relief. I feel like characters like this haven't really been played before. So it's like we get to create it as we would interpret it.

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sprite

That really is the trick to the MCU -- for all the bizarre bombast, there's a core of character and humanity in these films. We don't really care so much about Iron Man as much as we care about Tony Stark. We don't really care about the explosive origins of the Eternals so much as we care about the Eternals themselves.

Exactly. You have to, otherwise, it would just be a meaningless action movie if you didn't really invest in the characters. It was a challenge. It's just one movie and so many things happened in it -- and I feel like we pulled it off really well. I feel like people really cared about the characters.

As a performer, what is it like to step into the MCU? This is a version of the world audiences have been watching now for over ten years.

When I first came into the movie -- you lose faith in yourself sometimes. You're like, "Oh my gosh, how do I deserve to be here? How is this happening to me? I'm not good enough for this." The first couple weeks of shooting, I was so nervous and stressed that I'd have to act perfectly. It came to a point where... Marvel knows what they're doing so well and the number of people [they have on set], it's crazy. There are people for everything, everywhere that you would not expect.

It's just crazy to wrap your head around the number of people that go into just making one movie and they have got everything handled. It's a weight off your shoulders. If they don't get the scene, they can add another day and shoot it again. And it was such a long shoot because it's a long movie, but also because they take their time and do everything the right way. So I came to a point where you're very trusting in the process.

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I hadn't thought about it like that, but you're right. Marvel Studios probably is one of the only studios, one of the only places in Hollywood that can honestly just go, "Eh, we're going to delay the movie six months. No big deal."

Exactly, exactly. They can do whatever they need to do.

They built a house, actually. They built a house near Stonehenge where we shot Ajak's house. They actually physically built a real house and then they tore it down and it ended up raining and they didn't get the scene they needed. So they tore it down and they just rebuilt it on the sound stage a month later. I'm just like, "You can do that!?" The Eternals spaceship was massive. It took up the entire soundstage. I think there were two sound stages with the spaceship, and they tore it down, and then they brought it to LA and they rebuilt it because they had to add a scene. I'm just like, "I don't understand that. How they can just do that," but they can.

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When you look at Sprite, at her actions and her decisions, how much do you think was formed by her belief in the Eternals' cosmic purpose versus how much of that do you think is genuinely defined by how much she feels?

What her motives are I think are a bit selfish. It's very devastating. You see it in a scene in the beginning when she's in the bar and she's a girl and then he touches her and she has to disappear... There's just a look on her face of utter despair. It's so sad and devastating and she can never, ever have that. No matter what she does. So I think it's understandable, but it is selfish. She wants to have her memory wiped so bad. She wants to forget about this place and she wants to forget about the pain and the sorrow because it's just too much for her to deal with.

I think a lot of her actions she does because she knows she won't remember. She does hurt her family, but in her mind, she's like, "But I need to forget, I'd do anything to forget this." And it's just really sad and devastating. She's so desperate to be a part of humanity and she wants it more than anything else that it's just unbearable for her.

So, the film ends with Sprite no longer technically being an Eternal. She now has the ability to age. As someone who invested so much time in the character, how do you think Sprite would like to spend that time? I realize that's not necessarily going to be the easiest thing to do if she's been put in space, but how do you think she would like to spend that time?

As a human, I honestly think she might go a little crazy. I think she may be a bit of a trouble child, if I'm being honest with you. I bet she'll grow up and be so excited to do everything. I think about that sometimes, about where she would be when we come back in [the potential] Eternals 2. I think it's funny to think that maybe she turns into a crazy teen and Kingo has to wrangle her.

Eternals is now available on Digital and will be available on 4K, Blu-ray and DVD on Feb.  15.

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