It’s a proper, big action movie ..see it with a big crowd and popcorn
LAURA HARDING talks to Oscar winner Rachel Weisz and Stranger Things star David Harbour about joining the Marvel Universe with Black Widow
RACHEL Weisz never expected to be in a Marvel movie.
The 51-year-old actress, became a household name with blockbuster The Mummy, won an Oscar for her role in The Constant Gardener and has since starred in a string of acclaimed films, including The Favourite, The Lobster and About A Boy, but being asked to star in a superhero movie never crossed her mind.
Yet here she is, donning black leather in Black Widow, the longawaited standalone film for Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff.
After Anna Boden co-directed Captain Marvel, it is the first Marvel film directed by a solo woman, Cate Shortland, the filmmaker behind Lore, Somersault and Berlin Syndrome.
“Cate was already attached as the director, and she’s actually someone I wanted to work with for a very long time,” says mother-of-two Rachel, who is married to Bond star Daniel Craig.
“I’m a proper fan of her film work and Scarlett asked her to do the Black Widow film. Then I read the script and thought the role was a lot of fun. I was quite surprised to be invited into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but very, very pleased, really chuffed.”
It’s been more than 10 years since Black Widow burst on to the big screen in 2010’s Iron Man 2, and it has been a long wait for fans to finally get to see her in her own movie.
So long, in fact, that the superhero is already dead, having sacrificed herself in Avengers: Endgame. So the story takes audiences back in time, in the gap between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, and explores her complicated family history.
As a child, Romanoff was snatched from her biological parents by the KGB and was raised as part of a Russian sleeper cell posing as an average American family in Ohio, before their identity is discovered and they escape back to Russia.
Enter the fake “family” she grew up with – younger “sister” Yelena, played by Florence Pugh, “mother” Melina, played by Weisz, and “father” Alexei, played by David Harbour.
“I actually didn’t know until this second that it was the first time a solo woman [has directed a Marvel film],” Rachel says. “About bl**dy time is what I say! Fantastic!
“Cate is so incredibly talented, and she has such heart and soul and humour. For me, some of the most iconic action scenes I’ve ever seen are between Scarlett and Florence Pugh, fighting to the death.
“It just felt real. It really felt like they were going to kill each other. And it was incredibly exciting.”
David, 46, plays the conceited Alexei, who is still living in his glory days as the Red Guardian, the first Soviet-sponsored super solider, who is deluded enough to think he is a contemporary of Captain America and is desperate to know if the First Avenger ever talks about him.
“When Cate pitched it to me originally, she said he was this guy who had all these tattoos and was in prison, but also, he’s really needy.
“He wants his girls to think his jokes are funny. It takes all these twists and turns and he really becomes this three-dimensional thing.
“He doesn’t always make the right choices, he’s got a lot of guilt, a lot of remorse, a lot of things to make up for – and I just love characters like that.
“I felt there was real drama potential for him. He has a real drama to how he’s lived his life. I really love that about him.”
The world of Marvel is notorious for its secrecy, but David was well prepared for the pressure of keeping everything under his hat after his years playing Jim Hopper in Stranger Things.
“The funniest and the best thing about these worlds are the memorandums of talking points that you get from the publicity department,” he says with a laugh.
“It was like ‘Black Widow comes out July 9’ and that’s all you can say, and there’s a list of a million things you can’t. And you’re like, ‘Thanks.’
“It’s the same thing that happens with Stranger Things, and I totally get it, because one of the greatest things about these movies and that show is that you guys get to experience it for the first time. I know what happened in the script, I had to shoot it, but I would love to not know what happens in this movie, it’s a real nail-biter.
“It’s one of those things where I really don’t want to spoil it for people.”
Two people who aren’t grilling him for spoilers are his stepdaughters – Ethel, nine, and Marnie, eight – his wife Lily Allen’s children with ex-husband Sam Cooper.
David married the British singer in Las Vegas last year, but said his starring role in a superhero film has not impressed them.
“They don’t care,” he admits. “It’s funny though, nobody’s kids care. I think it’s like when I saw Sasha and Malia, Barack Obama’s kids, and they were just like, ‘Dad!’, you know?
“It doesn’t matter who you are, your kids are never gonna think you’re cool, they are never going to, that is the deal.”
But it seems likely they will be in the minority, as the return of Marvel blockbusters, which have been absent since 2019, marks a landmark moment in the reopening of cinemas.
The film was long delayed because of the Covid pandemic, but now there’s a superhero-sized reason to return to the multiplex.
“It’s a proper, big action movie,” Rachel says, “with a lot of heart and soul and laughs, and I’m so glad we’ve waited for cinemas to be open, because you do need to see it with a big crowd, with some popcorn, in a dark room.
“I think it will be really emotional for people to be able to get together and experience a story like that on the big screen.”
I actually didn’t know until this second that it was the first time a solo woman [has directed a Marvel film]... About bl**dy time is what I say!
Rachel Weisz