‘I hope women feel empowered by this film’
◆ As Madame Web comes to cinemas, Rachael Davis chats to Dakota Johnson, Tahar Rahim and director SJ Clarkson about female superheroes and action scenes
Dedicated Spider-man fans will already be well acquainted with Madame Web: the blind, elderly woman with myasthenia gravis who perches on a web-like life support system and has powers of precognition – seeing the future.
In the Marvel comics, fans see how she uses her precognition and clairvoyance to help Spider-man and the various heroines who have gone by the name Spider-woman, a powerful weapon in the heroes’ arsenal and an exciting supporting character for their missions and adventures.
Now, in the latest film in the Sony Spider-man Universe – a cinematic franchise that includes Venom and Morbius – Madame Web’s origin story is being explored on the big screen.
According to Marvel lore, Cassandra Webb was born without sight and learned of her psychic powers as she grew up. However, in director SJ Clarkson’s version of the story, we meet Cassandra – or Cassie, as she’s known – as a sighted, able-bodied thirtysomething who’s working as an everyday hero: a paramedic.
At the start of the film, Dakota Johnson’s Cassie seems to be a regular woman, albeit one who saves lives for a living, but an accident on the job leaves her with the ability to glimpse the future.
Soon she meets three teenage girls – Julia Cornwall, Mattie Franklin and Anya Corazon, played by Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’connor and Isabela Merced, respectively. They’re under attack from Ezekiel Sims, played by Tahar Rahim: a deadly adversary with spider-powers obtained while working in the Peruvian rainforest with Cassie’s late mother.
He can see the future and his death, and is obsessively on the hunt for his killers, leading him to track the three young women who have the potential to become Spider-women in their futures. Cassie must protect the girls, and their futures, learning about her own powers along the way.
“It’s her origin story, so it’s giving backstory to where we see her end up in the comics... That’s given us a lot of room and freedom and ability to kind of fill in a real woman and a real person,” says Johnson, 34, of her character. “She’s really strong, and complicated, and funny, and protective, and loving. There’s a lot of complexities going on. So it was always interesting.”
On the dark side of the story we have Ezekiel, the looming deadly threat who wears a black Spider-man-style
supersuit and a menacing glare.
“I enjoyed everything,” says French actor Tahar Rahim, 42, who had roles in 2018’s Mary Magdalene and Ridley Scott’s Napoleon.
“The physicality, of course, the supersuit. But what I enjoyed most was his fight for survival, his psychology… his inner feelings. It’s not just one layer of character. You can identify in some ways to him, because you feel like, what would you do if you knew who was going to end your life? Of course, I wouldn’t chase those three girls, but I would try to do something. Maybe accept it, maybe just try to stop it, avoid it, whatever. But that’s a great question.”
Delving into the story of a supporting character from a beloved comic book series is no mean feat, but SJ Clarkson – who also co-wrote the screenplay – rose to the challenge.
“SJ had such a good grip on what this movie was, and shooting something that has flashbacks and visions of the future, and then the present, and shooting out of sequence can be really confusing, [but] I just felt very in good hands,” says Johnson.
Clarkson’s version of the Madame Web origin story leans into the idea of womanhood and feminine power. We see Cassie act as a big sister to Julia, Mattie and Anya as she protects them from the imminent threat, but we’re also treated to high-octane action sequences from the female characters.
“I mean, there’s strong females in the world, and I just think, why not represent them in a superhero movie?” says Clarkson, for whom Madame Web marks her feature directorial debut after a rich career in TV with credits including Anatomy of a Scandal, Succession and Orange Is The New Black.
“First and foremost, they’re just great characters – each of them [are] so individual, unique, have their own perspective on things. The wonderful dynamic with the three girls was great fun, and then that dynamic with the younger generation with somebody older... I found that really interesting, and I thought that would be a really fun thing to represent.”
Johnson adds: “I hope that women and girls watch this movie and feel empowered to be their most powerful selves.”
Filming the dynamic action sequences meant a lot of hard, physical work for the actors: workouts, strict diets and even stunt-driving lessons and learning to wire-fly.
“Learning all the fight sequences, and learning the stunts, and stunt driving,” says Johnson. “It was so fun. It’s such a bonus.”
She adds: “I did a lot of working out beforehand to be strong. The filming days are really long, and when you’re doing stunts, it’s really physical, so you want to have a lot of stamina.”
“So I did a lot of training, and then stunt driving, I did a little bit of training. And then we’d work during the days on combat stuff.”
Rahim agrees: “A lot of workouts. Diet. The diet was so hard. Flexibility, wires – I did a lot of that,” he says. “And when we did it on set, it worked instantly – and then you understand why you train so much!
“But the first time was so funny. I had so much fun, it was like being in a circus. I loved it. Because I always wanted to be in an action movie, use my body differently, learn things, and everything was in this movie. So I was like, OK, yeah, let’s do it!”
She’s really strong, and complicated, and funny, and protective, and loving