The result was something that added new
layers to an already complex character.
Black Widow, as well as revealing the
considerable vulnerability beneath Natasha’s
wise-cracking facade, introduces us to her
former tribe. After cutting herself off from half
the Avengers in Civil War and going on the run
from the authorities — William Hurt’s Secretary
Ross is leading the hunt for Natasha — our
Black Widow is adrift, no longer defi ned by
who she works for. Circumstances force her to
get in touch with what is, more-or-less, her
estranged family.
They are, well, not your traditional nuclear
clan. No-one’s willing to reveal exactly how
they came to be tied together, but there’s at the
very least a quasi-family relationship between
Natasha and the group: Rachel Weisz’s Melina
Vostokoff , David Harbour’s Alexei Shostakov and
Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova. It’s a formidable
cast. “I mean, we’re all from the theatre and from
indie, very kind of arty movies,” says Harbour.
“They all have fucking Oscar nominations. I do
not, thank you very much. I am the weak link.”
Harbour is in awe all round. “I’m just madly
in love with Rachel Weisz,” he says. “It’s like
a problem. It’s taken over my life.”
As well as introducing us to Natasha’s
extended family, the fi lm will investigate
Natasha’s past. We saw a glimpse, in Age Of
Ultron, of ballet lessons with Madame B,
Natasha’s mentor (Julie Delpy), and shooting
lessons and graduation by assassination — but
what about the stuff that wasn’t carried out in
relatively pleasant-looking, wood-panelled
rooms? What about the stuff below ground?
Now, in a way that might not have been possible
ten years ago, Marvel can explore what it takes
to make little girls into ruthless killers and what
Johansson calls the “horror” of what happens
to those girls.
Weisz’s Melina and Pugh’s Yelena are
Widows like Natasha, cycled through the Red
Room training system. “There’s a huge price to
pay for becoming a Black Widow,” says Weisz.
“Multiple cycles of the Red Room training has
certainly aff ected Melina’s personality [and]
state of mind.” Pugh’s Yelena is also trying — like
Natasha — to deal with “those dark places in her
mind”. But sisterly bonding proves the answer,
as she and Natasha realise they have basically
the same scars. “They start to heal when they
start to talk to one another,” says Pugh, “so it’s
quite a nice little superhero family there.”
With two other trained Widows — and more
in the background — Natasha is no longer alone
or unique in her abilities. She’s almost fi ghting
against herself, or at least fi ghting someone
with the same skillset, which becomes a neat
metaphor: Natasha battling her own demons.
“We play a lot with that idea of the mirror image
and mimicry,” says Johansson — an idea that
also recurs in one of the fi lm’s villains, the
Taskmaster, whose superpower is an uncanny
ability to pick up any opponent’s fi ghting
technique and use it against them. There is one
more member of the family unit and, unlike the
three female leads, he has some honest-to-
goodness superpowers. Alexei, aka the Red
Guardian, was Soviet Russia’s slightly budget
answer to Captain America, gone pretty much
to seed since the end of the Cold War. “What’s
great is Alexei takes himself completely
seriously,” says Shortland. “He’s a really
fragile ego.”
Shortland wanted David Harbour for
Alexei. After Stranger Things and Hellboy, the
actor was itching to get back to some straight
drama, maybe do some Shakespeare on stage,
but he met Shortland for lunch anyway.
“She pitched me the story and it was
really surprising,” he says. “It was like, ‘Alexei’s
a badass, he’s in prison, he’s angry, he’s mean
and he’s also really needy. He wants his kids
to like him.’ We talked about Ricky Gervais in
The Offi ce a little bit. We talked about Phil
Hoff man in The Savages, this comedy that
comes out of real domestic need, and
I thought that was really special. So almost
immediately I was like, ‘I’d love to do it.’”
Family: assembled.A
side from jaunts to Norway,
Budapest, Morocco and Marvel’s
Atlanta home base, HQ for
the shoot was Pinewood Studios
outside London. There,
Shortland’s team built the ’60s-inspired
offi ces of Ray Winstone’s Dreykov, head of
the Red Room, and the almost Star Trek-like
glass-fronted prison cells that lie beneath
it, where Alexei will be spending some time
in the movie.
When Empire visits the set in September
2019, Harbour’s Alexei is attempting
(unsuccessfully) to punch his way out. Empire
watches as Harbour hammers on the glass
before crumpling up in a heap of self-pity on
the fl oor. Pinewood is also where the crew
built a jet on a massive gimbal, one that
Weisz’s Melina pilots into a desperate climb
later on the same day. Elsewhere, we see
Johansson’s Natasha engaged in some
top-grade infi ltration.
If some of this sounds like we’re
withholding information: well, in keeping