The Eternals may have had to do some serious world saving in their recent Marvel flick, but behind the scenes, it sounds like the cast really bonded with one another. The team’s youngest hero is Lia McHugh’s Sprite, who is still having secondhand embarrassment over one of her cut scenes in the MCU epic involving Angelina Jolie.
Lia McHugh, who is 17 years old, recently spoke exclusively with CinemaBlend’s own Law Sharma about starring in Eternals as Sprite. When asked about any deleted moments that didn’t make the over two-hour and a half action film, she shared this story:
I had to shoot a scene where I had to sing karaoke on the private jet, and I have to say, it’s probably one of the most humiliating moments of my life. I had to just go all out and I sang the song that played in the [the first Eternals] trailer actually. I had to sing that song to Angelina Jolie. I was like singing to her and to Barry and Kumail. It was probably the most embarrassing moment of my life and I remember Chloé coming up to me and she was like, ‘Are you trying to sing badly, Lia?’ And I wasn’t, but I was like ‘Yeah, definitely.’
Wait, there could have been two Marvel karaoke scenes in 2021? Of course, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings featured Simu Liu and Awkfafina belting out “A Whole New World” just a couple months before Eternals was released. Perhaps that’s why Chloé Zhao ended up cutting Lia McHugh’s karaoke moment. Considering her reaction to filming the scene, she might be a-ok with it being left out of the movie.
The song Lia McHugh is referencing is likely “The End of the World” by Skeeter Davis, which was recorded back in 1962 and ended up being featured in the movie’s first trailer. Given Sprite has been alive for thousands of years, she likely knows a ton of oldies despite being in the body of a teenager. McHugh shared that they shot a scene of Sprite singing the song to Angelina Jolie, Barry Keoghan and Kumail Nanjiani. Apparently her singing was so bad that the writer/director pulled her aside and asked if she was trying to sound that bad.
While the Eternals home release, coming out on February 15, does feature deleted scenes with Lia McHugh’s Sprite, it doesn’t seem like the karaoke moment will be part of it. According to ComicBook.com, there will be four deleted scenes, two of which involve Sprite. One of them is called “Nostalgia,” and has McHugh’s character and Makkari reminiscing about humankind. The other sees Sprite confronting Kit Harington’s Dane in a museum regarding Sersi.
During CinemaBlend’s interview with Lia McHugh, the actress also spoke about her experience learning ASL to interact with Makkari (played by Lauren Ridloff). It sounds like the young actress flexed a lot of skills on the set of the Marvel movie, so what if she’s bad at a little karaoke! You can stream Eternals with a Disney+ subscription ahead of the home release next week.
