Eternals‘ Lia McHugh on Sprite’s big crush and whether gods need haircuts

If you’ve seen (or read) Eternals already, then you know that Sprite has had it rough. She’s spent thousands of years inhabiting the body of a 12-year-old girl and never getting any real respect for her age or wisdom. She’s also been suffering the stomach-churning angst of one of history’s oldest unrequited crushes, all while also trying to be a god or whatever. It couldn’t have been easy.

Lia McHugh, who plays Sprite in Eternals, certainly doesn’t think so. We sat down with her for the video above, in which we talk about those millennia lost to life as a tween.

McHugh says “a lot of” her motivation for Sprite came from “the imagination of how you think someone would feel as 7000 years old stuck in the body of a child.” McHugh says she’s “always looked younger” than she is, and that helped her identify with Sprite’s struggle.

McHugh says Sprite occasionally gets a little world-weary and takes advantage of her appearance, saying “some of those characteristics [of a child] come through when she’s got some attitude or she’s… tired of life [or] tired of being on Earth.” “She’s an old lady and she’s a little bit cranky,” she says.

All that’s well and good, but what McHugh couldn’t really answer was our biggest question: Do Eternals have to get haircuts, or are they just stuck with the same look for their whole lives? Think about it! What if Sprite wanted to mix it up? Could she? And does she use product? “I’m not sure if their hair grows,” said McHugh. “I honestly don’t know. I think Sprite’s look is sort of edgy and timeless. She’s lived for thousands of years, and… it’s sort of an old look. It’s kind of all over the place a little bit. I think her hair is really contributing to her attitude.”

Eternals is in theaters now. You can read our review of the movie right here.