Florence Pugh is Scarlett Johansson’s ‘most annoying’ little sister in ‘Black Widow’

Black Widow is the first Marvel film to focus on Scarlett Johansson’s title character (and only the second female-led MCU installment), even though the actress has played the role seven times in various other blockbusters. 

Though Black Widow (AKA Natasha Romanoff) is dead in the present-tense timeline of the Marvel films (here's everything you need to know about what's going on before watching the movie), the long-awaited standalone film focuses on the origin story of the brainwashed assassin turned Avenger.

Johansson told Etalk’s Lainey Lui that she is "so excited” to be giving Marvel fans more Black Widow and a backstory with this movie.

“I’m so excited for people to see this film. Obviously, we were meant to release it last May. We finished shooting it the summer prior and really have the shortest turnaround time of any Marvel feature to deliver for that date and so we were already panicking — slightly panicking about it,” she said, adding that they were just about to finish the film and then the pandemic hit.

“The circumstances were hugely unfortunate but the result of it was that we did have more time to finetune it,” she added.

In the film, Florence Pugh plays Yelena Belova, who was a close friend of Romanoff when they trained alongside each other in the "Red Room" but she is more like the bratty little sister. She said she enjoyed being able to play that kind of character in the Marvel film.

“I think I really enjoyed that. I grew up in a big family and I was the youngest for a while. I understand what it’s like to have to be the most annoying person at the dinner table. I think it’s just fun when you get to do that in a very kind of big and serious film. You have this kind of the constant theme of, 'Oh wait, they are just sisters and of course, she knows how to wind her up in all the right ways,'" Pugh explained.

She said that being part of the Marvel movie was “total fun” and she got to do it alongside Johansson who “couldn’t have been any cooler towards me throughout the whole process.”

“It was just really natural. I think when we did the rehearsals we figured out we liked each other pretty quickly and we went straight into a big fight sequence and that just took away any nerves of really getting up and close with her,” Pugh added.

For Pugh, she said the highlights of making Black Widow were “constantly teasing each other and laughing and being strapped to each other and eating food.” 

That sounds delightful TBH.

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