Lashana Lynch was ready to audition for Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical the moment it was announced. “I didn’t really have to do too much research,” says the London native and lifelong fan of Dahl’s kids’ classic. Even getting into the mindset of the beloved schoolteacher Miss Honey turned out to be a cinch. “She’s a character that I’d been almost manifesting for a while.”

Lynch, who until now was probably best known for her surprise turn as the first female 007 in No Time to Die, describes herself as a “serial manifester” whose ability to turn her dreams into reality is “a superpower.” Her latest dream? Hoping to inspire a brand-new generation of Matilda fans.

In putting her own spin on the iconic character, Lynch says she referred back to teachers from her younger years who helped her build her self-confidence. In fact, there was one teacher in particular: “I had a teacher/headmistress/singing teacher/guider, if you like, in primary school, who was a Black woman and who was sensitive to everyone’s needs and really saw you and your talents — your gifts,” she says. “She saw you as a human being; [she didn’t] speak to you as a child. She had a really good way of making you [feel] as visible as possible in all spaces, which as a young Black child from a working-class environment was pretty incredible.”

Unlike that mentor, Lynch saw Miss Honey as someone who lacked confidence and had low self-esteem. “I was really excited to work on Miss Honey’s anxiety and depression and her questioning herself and not knowing how to stand on her square, which is something I’ve tried to harness for years,” she says. “Coming from a traumatic background, working with her abuser — all of these things are really easy steps into discussing mental health without having to paint a dark picture of it.”

Also pivotal in developing her character was director Matthew Warchus, who worked on the original London theater production of Matilda. (Fun footnote: Warchus married Lauren Ward, who originated the role of Miss Honey onstage.) “It was nice to be able to work with a director who lived with this version of Matilda for so long in a different medium, but didn’t want to just bring the stage musical to the screen,” says Lynch. “He gave me Miss Honey like a brand-new character that no one else had ever met before. One thing that is amazing is that there was no stress on her color or what she looked like, what her hair was like — nothing. She was just Miss Honey.”

Now that the film is out, what superpower does Lynch hope the next generation of Matilda fans will take from it? “I hope young people learn to speak out to their elders, whether [they’re] your parents, your community leaders, your teachers or your friends’ parents,” Lynch says, sounding much like Miss Honey herself. “There are people out there you can communicate with when you feel shy or when you feel like there’s something going on with you which you can’t really put into words.”

Read Netflix Queue's full interview with Lashana Lynch here.