Hailee Steinfeld Teases Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova Return in Marvel’s Hawkeye

Like a good Christmas present, Hailee Steinfeld is keeping Florence Pugh’s role in Hawkeye under wraps. The Yelena Belova actor returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe after a Black Widow post-credits scene sees the shadowy Val (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) set up Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) as the fall guy for the death of Yelena’s sister-figure, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), who dies saving half of the universe in Avengers: Endgame. In Disney+’s Hawkeye, Yelena and Clint cross paths when he comes out of retirement to work with young archer Kate Bishop (Steinfeld) to stop an Avengers-level threat and get back to his family in time for Christmas. 

“They meet, huh? Wow. I bet that’s a fun and interesting encounter,” a coy Steinfeld told Extra when asked about Kate Bishop meeting Pugh’s Yelena Belova in Hawkeye. On sharing the screen with the Black Widow star, Steinfeld said, “Working with this entire cast has been absolutely incredible, it’s been an absolute dream.”

Steinfeld previously revealed she and Pugh had a “wonderful time together” on the set of Hawkeye, telling Cosmopolitan: “We had a moment together where we were shooting and something went wrong. 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,” she continued. “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.”

It won’t be a wonderful Christmas time for Clint: series co-director Rhys Thomas hints the first meeting between Hawkeye and the new Black Widow will be anything but merry. 

“I can’t speak to that,” Thomas told GamesRadar about paying off the Black Widow post-credits stinger with Clint vs. Yelena in Hawkeye. “But yes, we know their past, and obviously what happened in Endgame. We know in these first two episodes that Clint’s dealing with the fallout of that. But in terms of how they meet, I can’t – I’ll just pretend I don’t know. Imagine it’s a happy meeting, where they talk over coffee and work things out.”

Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye is an original new series set in post-blip New York City where former Avenger Clint Barton aka Hawkeye has a seemingly simple mission: get back to his family for Christmas. But when a threat from his past shows up, Hawkeye reluctantly teams up with Kate Bishop, a 22-year-old skilled archer and his biggest fan, to unravel a criminal conspiracy. 

Starring Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, Vera Farmiga, Fra Fee, Tony Dalton, Zahn McClarnon, Brian d’Arcy James and newcomer Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez, the two-episode series premiere of Marvel’s Hawkeye is November 24. 

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