Over the past 15 years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has delivered audiences massive adventures that sprawl the universe, with many of these stories setting up other adventures or featuring crossovers. Despite that expansive world, Hawkeye star Hailee Steinfeld recently reflected on how, while the imposing nature of such a massive franchise can be intimidating, actually being on the set of such a storyline is a much more intimate experience. The actor recalled how her costar Vera Farmiga likened the experience to being on a planet within a universe, with Steinfeld expressing how that helps ground her when she might feel overwhelmed by the pressures of the franchise.
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“Just as an actor in life, as a fan of movies, knowing these filmmakers and the actors and whatnot, so it was just a different experience,” Steinfeld recalled to the Happy Sad Confused podcast while discussing how she’s currently rewatching the MCU. “This goes back, when we were doing some stuff for Hawkeye, I was with Vera Farmiga, she said this so beautifully and I think about it often. We talk about being a part of the universe, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and she basically said that, and she was referring to our show specifically, she goes, ‘Well, we’re in this universe, it feels like we’re really just on a planet, we’re on a small, little planet, and it is very intimate and all of these big, huge, wild projects feel like these passion projects.’”
She continued, “It feels wild to say, you’re very much aware of the fact that you’re making something on a very large scale but you’re doing it with this group of people that is just so passionate about what it is we’re doing that it just feels so intimate, in that sense. Going back to the MCU will always be this massive thing, to me, but going back and with that thought process, it just feels like, these movies are just so good and they hold up so well.”
Interestingly, Steinfeld has more experience than most when it comes to compartmentalizing contributions to a long-running franchise and focusing solely on her role, having voiced Gwen Stacy for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and the upcoming Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
“The thing that never fails to just excite me like nothing else is the way that things are so interconnected and I feel like, even with Across the Spider-Verse, it’s like, it goes without saying, you have to watch these films a minimum of 75 times in order to get everything,” the actor admitted.
Stay tuned for updates on Steinfeld’s future with the MCU. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse hits theaters on June 2nd.
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