After working on the Marvel Cinematic Universe for nearly two decades, Victoria Alonso is bringing folks into her world through her novel, Possibility Is Your Superpower.
Hailing from Argentina and becoming one of the most successful Latinas in Hollywood history, Alonso shares the strategy behind her biggest achievements. A blend between memoir and self-help, she’s using superhero parallels to showcase the connection between character, will and resilience, and the superpowers possessed by the heroes in films she’s had a hand in, from Iron Man to Avengers: Endgame.
“I think that was an identifiable thing consistently in every movie for me as we were writing and developing different franchises that we have so much more in common with our superheroes than not,” Alonso told Blavity’s Shadow and Act.
She continued, “We don’t have their powers, like we can’t fly or we, you know, can’t wield a hammer the way Thor can or utilize certain powers that they have. But I would love to be able to walk on buildings like Spider-Man, but, truly, I think that those superpowers are within us, not the super strength, but the resilience, the capacity to take on obstacles, the wanting for better things to come, fighting for your rights, making sure your voice is heard. And those are all things that we communicated with our superheroes that I think it’s something that, as humans, we do all the time, and not often are we reminded that we are better off by exercising those things.”
Rising in an industry that doesn’t reflect people who look like her
In Possibility Is Your Superpower, Alonso opens up about turning perceived weaknesses into opportunities. However, she said she hasn’t always been strategic in transforming what could be seen as barriers into advantages.
“I don’t think that I was always as strategic as you might think I was,” she shared, adding, “I was always true to myself. So, if being A, B or C was perceived by you as a weakness, I didn’t see it. I didn’t think that by being an immigrant or being a woman or a gay woman, or being Latina or being a mom was anything but great, but if you perceived it that way, the only way that I could prove to you that it wasn’t is by being the best me that I could be. And I did that every day. I gave it my best shot, my best shot every day, and I gave everyone around and the company that I worked with and for the best version of me that I could, so that I think transcended anything that you thought would be a weakness by being who I was,” she continued.
On embracing a yes mindset
When it comes to a high-stakes environment like Marvel, where billions of dollars and global audiences are on the line, saying yes can sometimes be a bit of a risk, but Alonso said that the opposite is also taking a chance, so why not go for gold?
“I think that saying no is a risk too, and sometimes saying no is the lazy way out, because saying yes is a complicated journey, and it takes a lot more planning, a lot more meandering of how to find the yes,” Alonso said.
She added, “Yes becomes a journey, and I’m all in for the journey. Because somewhere along the way, it may not be a full yes, but it’s absolutely not a no. And I think that’s where the story gets carved in a way that it was unimaginable, because a no is an end to that story. A yes is an open forum.”
What’s one thing Alonso wants readers to walk away with?
Once you’ve read Possibility Is Your Superpower, Alonso said one key takeaway that she’s hoping for is simple: “Consider the possibility.”
“In all the superpowers that I have seen and worked on in the many, many projects that I did at Marvel, being open to the possibility was probably one of the greatest,” she concluded.
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