‘VisionQuest’: Emily Hampshire Breaks Down E.D.I.T.H. & Ultron’s Emotional Moment

As Vision (Paul Bettany) continues on his journey towards defeating Ultron (James Spader) and Jocasta (T’Nia Miller), who as of the latest episode have teamed up in a big way, the viewers at home know that he would be lost without the fellow A.I.s in his Mindspace. Our favorite of the bunch? E.D.I.T.H. (Schitt’s Creek alum Emily Hampshire). Her specialty in defense and weapons has already saved Vision quite a few times. And in the latest VisionQuest episodes, viewers even saw her freeing Paladin’s (Todd Stashwick) mission-control AI, the Handler (Diane Morgan).

Hampshire’s favorite E.D.I.T.H. moment, however, is her introduction in the first episode. “I feel like ‘E.D.I.T.H. crashes into the Mindspace’ just says everything about who she is,” Hampshire tells TV Insider. “She’s trying to make an entrance and she kind of fails, but then acts like she didn’t. That, to me, was the perfect way to introduce E.D.I.T.H.”

In the fourth episode, E.D.I.T.H. learns that she was designed based off of a real person, Edith Marks, a Stark Industries test pilot, making that intro even more on-brand for the character. That information sends the A.I. on an identity tailspin of her own, however. As she’s going through old Stark files, Ultron comes down. She shows him newspaper clippings detailing Edith’s real-life tragedy — a husband who was killed in a plane crash just before their Italy honeymoon. “Why would Stark pass that onto me?” E.D.I.T.H. asks Ultron. “I’m supposed to be the fun one.”

Courtesy of Marvel

“Perhaps because Edith Marks was so exceptional and brave,” he tells her. “Because she lived every day with unimaginable pain and simply kept going,” later adding: “You get to be the next version of who you once were. She could never be you. She was who she was, and you are who you are.”

It’s a beautiful, surprising moment for the two characters, and one that Hampshire also loved filming alongside Spader. “It was really special, especially working with James in that moment,” she says. “I just thought it was the loveliest moment and so perfect because there was something that I always felt, all leading up to that, where Ultron and E.D.I.T.H. always had this little ‘game recognizes game’ rivalry in a way. They were snarky with each other, and I think it’s because they saw themselves in each other in this way. Ultron wants to see the Louvre, wants to experience art, and E.D.I.T.H., her whole thing is that she wants to experience life. She wants all the messy, uncomputable things about life.”

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“As an AI, you have all the information, but you don’t get to have that real, messy experience,” Hampshire continues. “And so, what I love in that moment is these two [beings] who are seemingly rivals, and he really is just lovely and kind to her in a way that you wouldn’t expect Ultron to be. It broke and swelled my heart.”

Us, too. For more from our video interview with Hampshire, see above.

VisionQuest, Wednesdays, Disney+