You didn’t actually have water in your helmet in that scene, did you?

We did fill up the helmet with water, which was scary, because apparently that’s a difficult thing to do with current special-effects technology. I am not that daredevil personality, so that was definitely a challenging day. Basically, I held my breath as long as I could, and then I could remove myself from the helmet as soon as I couldn’t hold my breath anymore. [Laughs] Oh, yes, it was a less pleasant scene to do, I must admit.

What struck you most from your research into female astronauts?

It’s interesting to note a profession where there’s usually one woman at a time. Even that recent story about how two women [were scheduled to do the first all-female spacewalk], but they only ended up having one suit, and one of them couldn’t go — which was so insane — shows this idea that there’s one slot for a woman that exists so often in powerful positions. There is one seat for a woman at the board table or whatever.

Lucy’s plight reminds me of the speech you gave in which you advised, “Stop the rhetoric that a woman is crazy or difficult.” Which leads me to Time’s Up. What are you most proud of accomplishing?

It’s been a really impressive thing how Time’s Up has been able to shape the conversation around pay equality and promote that. Of course, the U.S. women’s soccer team was really crucial in shaping that conversation. Michelle Williams just furthered it [in her Emmy acceptance speech]. It was really incredible to get to see how culture is shifting in talking about it. Then the recent changes in the New York law that was pro survivor of sexual harassment, abuse and assault was also really incredible. I think all of the conversation — women talking to each other, women talking publicly more — is inspiring to each of us. It makes us more capable of knowing even how to articulate what we’re feeling, what we need.

There’s so much to do still, but it’s also been a very rapid change and definitely feels like all of us have had a light-speed evolution in the past few years.

And now you’re about to embark on a new Thor film, your first since “Thor: The Dark World” in 2013. Three years ago you said that as far as you knew, you were done. How did the franchise lure you back?