Though relatively new to mainstream Hollywood, Florence Pugh already has a few high-profile roles in her resume (she was recently nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in Little Women), but that doesn't mean she's immune to a dose of big franchise jitters.
While speaking to Elle, Pugh admitted to feeling a bit apprehensive about signing on to play the second lead in Marvel's Black Widow.
“When you think of Marvel, it’s big and daunting,” Pugh told the mag. “Especially being a relatively small actor to look at it and go “oh, I’m going to be a part of this,” that’s a big decision.”
The British actress also said she was concerned that her character's Russian accent wouldn't sound convincing enough when the first footage of the movie was unveiled at SDCC.
“I was scared because my Russian accent was going to be out there and I didn’t know what it sounded like. I’m also playing a character who no one’s seen before but they’ve read about her. I didn’t know whether people were going to hate me.”
The fan-reaction to what we've seen of Pugh's take on Yelena Belova has been very positive, so she needn't have worried!
There's speculation that Yelena will ultimately take up the mantle of Black Widow and replace Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) as a member of The Avengers. There is some comic book precedent for this, of course, but in the source material Belova also goes on to work with S.H.I.E.L.D., Vanguard and HYDRA, so it remains to be seen how things play out in this film.
Black Widow is currently scheduled to hit theaters on November 6.
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Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.