Scarlett Johansson is opening up about the challenges of filming a Marvel film with a large ensemble.
The actress who played Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for 11 years recently chatted with David Harbour, her co-star in 2021’s Black Widow, for Interview magazine about the difficulty of playing the same character for so many years.
“Some of the films that I did for Marvel engaged my character more than others,” Johansson admitted. “Like in Captain America: The Winter Soldier with Chris [Evans], we were really dynamic. In some of the other films, the cast was so enormous and there was so much plot to serve that you start to feel like you’re a device to move it along. And if you’re committed to five and a half months of that, it’s like, ‘Okay. I can’t paint my nails, I can’t get a haircut.’ These sound like silly problems, but your identity is wrapped up in this job for a long time, and if you’re not doing engaging work as an actor, you feel a little cagey sometimes.”
Harbour played Alexei in 2021’s Black Widow, which served as a prequel, as Johansson’s character was killed off in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. However, the Thunderbolts* star understood Johansson’s perspective, as he’s played Hopper in Netflix’s Stranger Things for nearly 10 years, with the fifth and final season releasing later this year.
“When I started, I loved it so much,” he explained. “Buddies of mine who’d done TV shows for many years said, ‘By season three or four you’ll be running.’ And I was like, ‘Never! I love all these guys so much.’ And then you get to a certain point where you’re like, ‘How much more story is there?’ You’re having to play a lot of the same beat, and there’s a feeling where you’re like, ‘I want to take a risk. I want to do something that people haven’t seen me do before.’ So yeah, after 10 years, it’s like, ‘Okay.’”
Elsewhere during their conversation, Harbour also mentioned that Johansson was listed as an executive producer on his latest film, Thunderbolts*, at one point. “It’s the opening day of a movie that basically you are the seventh Thunderbolt in. Your character is all over this movie…. You are an executive producer on it. Congratulations,” he said.
Johansson proceeded to clarify that she “asked to have my credit removed because I wasn’t involved,” signaling that she was likely credited on the film due to contractual reasons.
Harbour’s Alexei and Florence Pugh’s Yelena made their MCU debut in Black Widow before they went on to lead Thunderbolts*. The film also starred Sebastian Stan, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Lewis Pullman, Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Kamen, Olga Kurylenko and Geraldine Viswanathan.