Hawkeye Directors Praise Florence Pugh as “Batsh-t Crazy”

We’re two-thirds of the way through the first season of Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye, and the Disney+ series has been offering surprising revelations at basically every turn. Among them was the return of Black Widow‘s Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), who appeared to pretty great fanfare at the end of the series’ fourth episode. While we only have seen seconds of Yelena’s latest Marvel Cinematic Universe appearance, it’s safe to say that fans have been happy to see her back — and apparently, some of the series’ directors feel the same way. In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Hawkeye directors Bert and Bertie praised Pugh for “being really brave” with her approach to Yelena, to some “fun” and “inspiring” extents.

“Watching her decision-making and being really brave with the character not only was inspiring, but also just a lot of fun,” Bert revealed, before joking, “What’s great about her is she’s batsh-t crazy. She’s like us!”

“To bring her story into this was such a dream come true,” Bert said elsewhere in the interview. 

“Being a fan of Florence and what she had done with Yelena’s character, [it] was very exciting,” Bertie echoed.

Pugh’s role in Hawkeye was first confirmed last year, and as the post-credits scene of Black Widow revealed, Yelena was sent to kill Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) by Valentina (Julie Louis-Dreyfus) and her mysterious team. 

“We had a moment together where we were shooting and something went wrong,” Hawkeye star Hailee Steinfeld recently explained to Cosmopolitan. “There was no recovering from it. I started laughing so hard that somebody thought I was crying … and I just remember a flood of people rushing in and being like, ‘Is everyone okay?’ And I’m literally facedown on the ground, just hysterically laughing. Mind you, we were in a scene that was in no way, shape, or form meant to be at all funny. We really did have a wonderful time together.”

In Hawkeye, while in New York City post-Blip, Clint Barton must work together with the young archer Kate Bishop to confront enemies from his past as Ronin in order to get back to his family in time for Christmas. The series also stars Vera Farmiga as Eleanor Bishop, Fra Fee as The Clown, Tony Dalton as Swordsman, Alaqua Cox as Echo, and Zahn McClarnon as William Lopez.

New episodes of Hawkeye debut on Wednesdays exclusively on Disney+. If you haven’t signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out here.

Note: If you purchase one of the awesome, independently chosen products featured here, we may earn a small commission from the retailer. Thank you for your support.