Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova — the new Black Widow — might be one of the best casting decisions in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While many of the actors in these movies and TV shows are incredibly talented, only a few have pulled off what Pugh has.
She has managed to impose her personality onto the films, going past what was originally written on the page. Her distaste for the iconic Black Widow pose seen across the MCU movies has been turned into a full-on character trait.
Florence Pugh wasn’t a fan of Black Widow’s famous pose
Pugh, coming off a breakthrough role in Midsommar, had mostly indie film experience when she came to the Black Widow set. Her feel for being a more significant part of the collaborative process may have inspired her to be more vocal than most inside the streamlined Marvel movie-making machine.
According to WatchMojo, the Little Women actor had a raucous conversation with the Black Widow stunt team. She didn’t hide her feelings on the by-then iconic way Scarlett Johansson lands after a heroic leap. You know the one: she lands with one leg outstretched, the opposite hand to the ground, the other arm bent.
When the team passed that along, the script got a rewrite. Yelena reacts with disgust at the silliness of the pose. And at one point, when she accidentally lands herself similarly, she shudders. It was the best recurring bit in the film and helped establish the character as worthy of taking on the Black Widow mantle.
Yelena Belova’s distaste for the pose carries over to ‘Hawkeye’
Pugh’s take on Belova was nothing like the somewhat grim way Johansson played her predecessor Natasha Romanov. Much of that comes down to Pugh’s improvisation and her way with the material as written. That continued when Belova appeared in the streaming series Hawkeye, ComicBook.com reports.
That included her annoyance with “the pose,” which was then a recurring bit in the MCU. It’s a helpful bit of levity for a character with such a dark background. She comes into Hawkeye as a brutal assassin who has been lied to about how Romanov died. Part of the MCU formula is never to let things get too bleak, so Pugh’s jokey style is crucial to making these themes work.
Pugh improvises Belova’s hilarious retort to a sexist line in the ‘Black Widow’ script
Pugh didn’t just plant seeds with the stunt crew on Black Widow. She also insisted on improvising on set, a rarity for Marvel movies outside of the early Jon Favreau-directed films. And, like with her instincts on joking about “the pose,” the bit that made it in was an instant fan-favorite.
The script that initially made it to set involved a joke about menstruation said by a male character. The rest of the actors in the scene — all women — were supposed to react without saying any lines. Pugh sneered at the idea and had her character throw out a witty retort.
The line works. It matches everything we know of the character and her rapport with everyone in the scene. It’s funny, perhaps even the best throwaway joke in the movie. It shows that Pugh has comedic and storytelling instincts that will give any project a boost in credibility. As long as she can continue contributing, her character should be a big hit for Marvel.
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