Emily Hampshire on ‘VisionQuest’ and E.D.I.T.H.’s Backstory

Emily Hampshire brings E.D.I.T.H. to life in Marvel Television’s VisionQuest. I had the chance to catch up with the actress to discuss discovering who her character is based on, how she explored emotions as an AI persona, her costume design, and more. This interview will contain spoilers for episode 5, now streaming on Disney+.

Vision, rebooted and having escaped from those who sought to weaponize him, has been in hiding. Searching for new meaning, he consults the AI personas embedded in his programming, including F.R.I.D.A.Y., E.D.I.T.H., J.A.R.V.I.S., and the infamous Ultron. His discreet existence ends when a bounty placed on his head thrusts him on the run with Thomas Shepherd, a mysterious boy who may be Vision’s son, reincarnate. As Vision evades capture, he must confront his nature, resist Ultron’s influence, and unravel the enigma that is his young companion if he’s to survive.

It won’t take fans long to fall in love with Hampshire’s portrayal of E.D.I.T.H., but what adds even more depth to the AI persona is the background of Edith Marks, the human being she is meant to resemble.

“It was so interesting for me, because we don’t get the scripts at the beginning. I didn’t know, so I got to discover that as E.D.I.T.H. discovered it,” she shared. “I thought it was so brilliant of Terry Matalas, our showrunner, to give the character who’s all about fun, that it comes from this really painful place. And to me, I do a lot of comedy stuff, and I’ve always thought of comedy as kind of the cry of the powerless. At least to me, in my life, whenever there’s times that are hard, I just, ‘oh, gotta be funny, make a joke.’ And so, I just thought that was such a human instinct in Terry as a writer. But also, it just made me want to know everything about E.D.I.T.H.’s backstory and Edith Marks, and now, I just want to see the prequel to Edith Marks and Howard Stark, and all of that.”

Watch my full interview below: