Evangeline Lilly took Disney to task on Thursday in the wake of the company’s announcement earlier this month that it would be laying off around 1,000 employees.
The 46-year-old actress, who has starred in four films for the Disney-owned Marvel Studios, slammed the media giant’s efforts to cull its staff, saying that the layoffs would only ‘make executives rich’ at the expense of artists in a fiery post on Instagram.
‘Where are the laws that REMOVE all human art from the AI bank?!? Why do they get to steal our brilliance and use it to make executives rich while the artists responsible for feeding their robots go hungry??,’ Lilly wrote in her lengthy caption.
‘Disgusting. California lawmakers…where are you?!?!?’ she added in a call for help.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the Walt Disney Company for comment but has not yet received a response.
Lilly – who announced her retirement from acting in 2024 – also offered her support to the visual effects artists at Marvel, who are influential in crafting the look of the Ant-Man films, which she has starred in with Paul Rudd.
Evangeline Lilly, 46, blasted Disney in an Instagram post on Thursday in response to reports earlier this month that the media giant would lay off around 1,000 employees
The actress, who starred with Paul Rudd (L) in the Ant-Man franchise, said the layoffs would only ‘make executives rich’ at the expense of artists; Rudd, Kathryn Newton and Lilly pictured in 2023’s Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania
‘To the @marvelstudios artists who designed and brought to life the glory days of Marvel…I salute you 🫡,’ she continued. ‘I was there. I know what you did. I know how passionately you worked round the clock to make magic happen.
‘You are the magicians, no matter what the Wizards of our new Oz make it look like going forward,’ Lilly wrote. ‘I will never forget.
‘@disney SHAME ON YOU for turning your back on the people who built the power you are now using to throw them away,’ she added in a fury.
She urged her followers and Marvel fans to ‘share the love’ with Marvel Studios’ Director of Visual Development, Andy Park, whom she had reached out to after news of the layoffs.
‘He was responsible for designing SO many of your fav @marvelstudios characters,’ she wrote.
Lilly also thanked Patrick Caligiuri, a reality TV producer, for helping to spread the news about the impact of Disney’s layoffs.
In her video, Lilly reiterated her anger at the layoffs, and described a call to Park to confirm if reports of the firings were true.
According to the Avengers: Endgame actress, Park informed her that not only were the reports true, but he was among the many employees who had been given the boot.
‘To the @marvelstudios artists who designed and brought to life the glory days of Marvel…I salute you,’ she wrote, following news that the layoffs had wiped out the visual effects team at Marvel Studios
‘@disney SHAME ON YOU for turning your back on the people who built the power you are now using to throw them away,’ she added in a fury; Lilly is pictured on the poster for Ant-Man And The Wasp (2018)
He joins around 1,000 employees at Disney and its various companies who have reportedly lost their jobs.
Lilly has worked extensively with Disney and Marvel Studios in the Ant-Man franchise.
She appeared opposite Paul Rudd as Hope van Dyne — the daughter of Michael Douglas’s Hank Pym and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Janet van Dyne — in 2015’s critically acclaimed Ant-Man.
She got a chance to become a superhero herself in its 2018 sequel, Ant-Man And The Wasp, and Lilly reprised the role in Avengers: Endgame the following year.
Her final appearance in a major role in the series was in 2023’s sequel Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, which received some of the worst reviews of any Marvel film, earning a 38 percent rotten review compiled from the most prestigious critics surveyed by Rotten Tomatoes.
The film marks the final role to date for Lilly, who announced in 2024 that she was giving up acting.
Disney’s new CEO, Josh D’Amaro – who was named by longtime leader Bob Iger as his successor in February, before being voted in to the position in March – claimed ‘the fast-moving pace of our industries’ was responsible for the decision to fire so many employees in a memo, according to Variety.
D’Amaro wrote that the current environment ‘requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs.’
She appeared opposite Paul Rudd as Hope van Dyne — the daughter of Michael Douglas’s Hank Pym and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Janet van Dyne — in 2015’s critically acclaimed Ant-Man and its sequels, as well as 2019’s Avengers: Endgame; pictured in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania
Disney’s new CEO, Josh D’Amaro claimed ‘the fast-moving pace of our industries’ was responsible for the decision to fire so many employees in a memo, according to Variety
He added that the layoffs were intended to ‘streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect from Disney.’
The company had already laid off over 8,000 employees since Iger returned to the top job in 2022, following the brief and tumultuous stint of his first successor, Bob Chapek.
According to the publication, Disney employed around 230,000 employees, both full- and part-time, as of September 2025.
Disney had roughly 230,000 full and part-time employees in September 2025.
According to Deadline, the current round of layoffs amounts to around eight percent of Marvel’s workforce.
The New York–based Marvel Entertainment and Burbank-based Marvel Studios were both reportedly hit particularly hard by layoffs, which touched nearly every department.
However, the layoffs are reportedly particularly devastating for the visual effects department.
According to the publication, only a small group of employees have been left, and instead of doing a significant amount of the visual effects work within Marvel studios, those employees will have to contract out the work on future films to other visual effects firms.
Layoffs have also been widespread throughout media companies in recent years, and a large round of firings is expected if Paramount is able to finalize its deal to purchase Warner Bros.
