'It was built into the story that we'd have sexist trolls'

The 'She-Hulk' star Tatiana Maslany talks to Tom Murray about Marvel fan misogyny, her part in the actors' strike and what she thinks about the recent revelations around kids' TV

"I'm terrified of everything," Tatiana Maslany admits. The SheHulk star and I are on the subject of fear because in her new animated film Butterfly Tale she plays a butterfly named Jennifer who is scared of heights. And just like Jennifer, the Canadian actor prefers to face her fears head-on rather than cower behind them. “I tend to push through those nerves and the fear of it because conquering it and feeling that rush is quite exciting.”

She’s at home in Los Angeles, chatting over Zoom from her sun-drenched apartment in trendy Los Feliz. Maslany is about as far away from Hulk rage as you can imagine: she is light, funny, self-deprecating. It’s noon but she looks blurry-eyed and fresh-faced; messy brown hair falls over the hood of a cosy black sweater.

The 38-year-old has been acting for most of her life, beginning when she was just 11 years old on Canadian kids’ TV. Various small roles in film and television followed in her adulthood until she was cast as the con artist Sarah Manning and her several idiosyncratic clones in the sci-fi series, Orphan Black. It was her breakthrough. Her ability to flip seamlessly between a volatile Ukrainian cult escapee and an icy, upper-crust Brit (among many others) firmly established her as a chameleonic character actor. In one 2015 interview, it was noted that Maslany’s mother was on set watching her daughter and wondered aloud when Tatiana would be back.

The Guardian called it “Olympic-level” acting and her athletic feat was rewarded with an Emmy in 2016. “I remember having an acupuncturist work on me and she was like, ‘What do you