Actress Lucy Davis has never been to a comic book convention. When she appears as a guest star this weekend at Wizard World St. Louis Comic Con, she does not know what awaits.
“I have no idea what to expect. I’m kind of excited. Someone said, ‘You’d better like crowds.’ That’s good, because I’m quite all right with crowds,” the 44-year-old British actress said on the phone from Los Angeles, where she has lived since 2005.
Davis’ invitation to appear came on the strength of her performance in last year’s “Wonder Woman.” She played Etta Candy, the strong-willed secretary to Wonder Woman’s love interest. Etta quickly becomes Wonder Woman’s friend and, in a memorable scene, takes her shopping so the Amazonian superhero will not look out of place.
The ardent fandom that comes with acting in a popular superhero movie is new to Davis, whose previous stand-out work has generally come in smaller and funnier productions. She played Dawn the receptionist in the original British version of “The Office” and was in the zombie comedy “Shaun of the Dead.”
When she was just 20 years old, Davis also had a small role in the spectacularly popular, in its way, 1995 BBC miniseries version of “Pride and Prejudice.”
“It was my first job that I got,” she says. “Oh my God, I loved it. I thought, ‘Is this what being an actor is? You get this really good job out of the gate and nothing bad happens?’ That was what I thought back then.”
She also found a certain kind of recognition when she was in a commercial for Imodium, the anti-diarrheal drug. She played a bride whose father comes down with a bit of a problem — which is soon cured through medicine — on her wedding day. She had one line, which she also had to record in French and German, despite not knowing German.
It ran for two years, she says with a laugh, “so this (Wizard World invitation) may be for that.”
Etta Candy as a Funko Pop! figurine
Now, after playing Etta Candy in “Wonder Woman,” Davis has her own Funko Pop! doll, a blank-faced vinyl figurine that is the current rage among people who collect collectibles. At a recent improv event in San Francisco, all of her fans wanted her to sign their figurines.
“It’s really cute. I have no mouth on it, apparently,” she says. “I was actually really honored, because before this movie I didn’t know what things were out there.”
The filmmakers suspected “Wonder Woman” would be big before it was even filmed. When Davis auditioned, she wasn’t even told what the movie was, just that it was a secret.
She was told her character was named Fran, and even getting the lines of dialogue she was to say — actors call them “sides” — was something of an ordeal.
First, she had to click a link, which emailed her a password. Then she had to change that password to a new password before she could access the site that had the lines.
“If the cursor moved off the script, it would all go fuzzy. I felt like it was ‘Mission: Impossible,’” she says.
Only when Davis went to the audition did they tell her what movie it was for — and then only after she signed a nondisclosure agreement.
Fortunately, the Wonder Woman world was one she knew well.
“I was obsessed with Lynda Carter on TV. With that and ‘Superman.’ I was properly obsessed to the point of literally going to get my hair done and insisting that I had to look like Lois Lane,” she says.
“I probably loved ‘Wonder Woman’ as much as ‘Superman.’”
What Lucy Davis at Wizard World St. Louis Comic Con • When Friday through Sunday • Where America’s Center, 701 Convention Plaza • How much $40 for autograph, $65 for photo • More info wizardworld.com/comiccon/stlouis