Clockwise from
main: Red
Guardian looks
on; Melina
walks the
walk; Natasha
prepares for
action; Yelena
and Natasha get
acquainted.be punching: “Sometimes you have to punch
your way through,” shrugs Johansson wryly
on the set. In fact, the fi ght training also
helped Pugh pinpoint an aspect of Yelena’s
character, and establish her relationship with
Natasha. “She spends so much time taking
the piss out of Natasha for posing when she
fi ghts,” Pugh laughs in her trailer, making
Empire a cup of tea.
“We realised that some of my best qualities
were kicks and power thrusts or anything that
would get the job done quick. Yelena, she gets
the job done. She doesn’t land in a superhero
pose. I had never met Scarlett, and literally
after I just shook her hand we went on set for
one of the most aggressive fi ghts in the entire
fi lm. I remember having to slam her head
into the wall.”
A
ll speak highly of Shortland’s
commitment to character.
“She would say every single day,
‘Where’s the heart?’” explains
Pugh six months on. “It would
be so easy to just slightly touch upon the fact
that these superheroes have had a childhood
of abuse, but she really hammered it home.
Cate was never scared of showing the harsh
truth of it, and that’s something I’ve never
seen in big fi lms like this before.” Shortland
threw herself into the action and visual eff ects.
Throughout, though, her eye remained on
the deeply damaged woman who no longer
has a mission.
If Black Widow is about damage,
Shortland wasn’t going to soft-pedal the hurt
or sugar-coat it beneath a false veneer of
thoughtless empowerment. “It’s interesting
making a fi lm where a woman’s getting hit in an
age where we’re talking about violence against
women,” she says. “Because she takes some
terrible punches and she gives as good as she
gets. She keeps telling herself that she can’t be
vulnerable, that she can’t be emotional, that
she has to just keep going. I think that’s why
a lot of women identify with her, because she
thinks if she’s showing any emotion, it’s weak.
I think that’s what will be beautiful about this
fi lm: you go fi ght with her and it’s not weak
— it’s incredibly strong to be vulnerable.”
That message, about embracing
imperfection and injury and taking down
bullies anyway, feels important in the #MeToo
era. And Johansson enthuses about the work
she and Shortland have done with Natasha
Romanoff. “I never could have anticipated how
much more there was to explore,” she says,
“and be able to do that with Cate, who’s so
curious about it, always just digging deeper.
Searching for the truth.”
Meanwhile, Johansson is still sizing up
what this fi lm means to her. Over ten years
since her Black Widow work began, it’s a lot to
consider. “I don’t really have the perspective
on it yet,” she says. “I think it will take some
time for it to sink in. It’s been such a constant
in my life for a decade of time. Every 18 months,