When Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova was confirmed as a part of Disney Plus' Hawkeye, fans wondered how she would fit into the series. The penultimate episode, which premiered on Wednesday, offered a clear explanation in the form of a meaningful conversation between Yelena and Hailee Steinfeld's Kate Bishop. Hawkeye directors Bert and Bertie have now revealed that the scene was largely improvised.
As part of the post-credits scene in Black Widow, Yelena discovers that Clint Barton is the one responsible for her sister Natasha Romanoff's death. However, she hears the story from Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, which means that she doesn’t know the whole truth. It was expected that she would seek revenge, and Hawkeye will show fans how she goes about it.
In the fifth episode of Hawkeye, Yelena visits Bishop to ask her about Barton’s whereabouts and threatens her to stay out of her way, all while sharing a bowl of instant macaroni and cheese. The dinner scene is loaded with a variety of emotions, and the tension is palpable. It turns out that both Pugh and Steinfeld had some creative liberty to bring the scene to life. In an interview with Buzzfeed, directors Bert and Bertie revealed that there was a rehearsal for the scene, but as soon as Pugh and Steinfeld arrived to film, the directors set up the cameras and watched the two have fun. “Every single thing was just perfect between them, and the improvisation that they brought to it was dynamite,” they said.
The two actors seemed to have great chemistry, allowing the directors to sit back and watch them on the monitors. Pugh was the one who came up with the idea of dousing the macaroni with hot sauce. While filming the fifth episode of Hawkeye, the directors decided that Bishop would throw a bottle of hot sauce when she was surprised by Yelena's presence in her home. Based on that, Pugh recommended that her character then use the same bottle for her dinner, because she loves hot sauce. “So, the whole thing where Yelena basically says, 'Are you done? Can I go crazy?' That was not planned," revealed the directors.
Another part of the scene from Hawkeye episode 5 that was completely improvised was when Yelena is disgusted by Bishop's lack of cutlery in the kitchen. During rehearsal, there was only one proper fork available as a prop on set, the remaining were the disposable kind. When Pugh noticed it, she remarked, “There’s one fork!” That’s where that dialogue in the scene came from. “Florence and Hailee are just so relaxed with each other that Hailee could come out with the, 'I'm one person,' line as response to Florence running with the cutlery joke,” the directors said.
Hawkeye is streaming on Disney Plus.
Source: Buzzfeed