Tatiana Maslany first played Jennifer Walters in 2022's She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and, based on some recently leaked concept art, she'll reprise the role in next year's Avengers: Doomsday.
No one could really blame the actor for wanting to move on from the MCU after facing the wrath of some very angry fans following her MCU debut.
While She-Hulk: Attorney at Law faced plenty of justified criticisms (the special effects at times simply weren't good enough and the fourth wall breaks found mixed success), many targeted Maslany because the series tackled incel culture and made fun of toxic masculinity.
While the show was praised for its feminist themes, the backlash was vocal and, at times, pretty intense. Unsurprisingly, that's something Maslany struggled with.
"I don't know because to this day, my comments on my Instagram back 40 weeks ago, they like to go in all over there. For me, what's so exciting is that Jessica Gao knew that was going to happen," she told Collider in a recent interview. "She wrote it into the show. There's something in She-Hulk that is looking out, and she's aware of the camera. She's aware of somebody watching her."
"There's something about the inherent quality to that character that is self-aware and that understands her place within the MCU or within a series or a TV show or a scene or whatever, just like Jennifer Walters is aware of her place within the legal system and how she's struggling as a woman to be taken seriously or to be respected."
"Again, there are so many more interesting things that I can look to than vitriolic fan response where people don't like it or just want to be mean and use you as a dumping ground for their worst thoughts," Maslany continued. "But again, like you were saying, there are people who I meet at conventions who are like, ‘I love that show,’ or, ‘I've been reading She-Hulk since I was a kid, and the story of the show is exactly what she was like.’"
"You just remember that stuff and then you work through it," she added. "It’s a constant thing."
Maslany readily admits that, beyond the potential online toxicity, the pressure of joining a franchise as big as the MCU was also pretty daunting.
"If I'm taking on this part, I'm sort of embodying that in the world, too. I'm stepping into something that's bigger than me, that I don't know that I am that. I don't know that I can fill that out," she said. "People are going to be looking at me and saying things and deciding things. There's something about it that felt very meshed in with my feelings about even stepping into it."
Despite what proved to be a pretty rough ride with She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, it doesn't appear as if Maslany is going to allow a very vocal minority to bully her out of a role she's put a lot of herself into.
The Marvels star Brie Larson has sounded somewhat disillusioned in interviews when asked about what's next for Captain Marvel and her first movie being a target of "review bombing" forced Rotten Tomatoes to change how fan submissions work. Not all female-led projects struggle, but the second feminism comes into play, it becomes a free-for-all.
The moment for a second season has passed but the next Avengers movies can still set She-Hulk up as a major player in the MCU, particularly if those World War Hulk movie rumours have any truth to them.
Stay tuned for updates on She-Hulk's future as we have them.