In 2019, Disney brought Collider and a few other journalists to London to visit the set of their highly anticipated new MCU movie Black Widow, which was in production at the time. Little did we know that the film's planned 2020 release date would be pushed back over a year, making the wait for the Black Widow movie even longer.

Black Widow is now due to cinemas on July 9, 2021 (as well as being simultaneously released on Disney+ via Premier Access), which means we can finally share what we learned while on the Black Widow set. We were fortunate enough to speak with several people who worked on the film, including Black Widow herself Scarlett Johansson, who has portrayed Natasha Romanov (the titular Black Widow), since 2010.

During a group interview we spoke with Johansson about legacy of Natasha in the MCU and how the character has evolved since her debut in Iron Man 2, and how her characterization in that film was hypersexualized. We also discussed her relationship with her sister-not-sister Yelena Belova, played in the film by Florence Pugh, and how the relationship between Natasha and Yelena changed before filming began.

So, Yelena seems to be a key part of Natasha’s redemption arc. Could you talk a little bit about that potential?

SCARLETT JOHANSSON: Yeah. We knew we wanted to include the Yelena character really early on, but that character really transformed over the months of prep that we did and development. The character kind of felt very — I don’t know how to say this. I guess what I would say is that the story of two women competing against one another and trying to take each other down and sort of dethrone one another felt uninteresting. It just didn’t feel like what I wanted to explore and I think what, really, audiences wanted to see. It just felt very old fashioned and not true, and so taking that feeling and running with that instinct, the relationship developed into what it is, which is it’s a relationship that I think is grounded in a shared experience and a knowingness and a sisterhood. With that comes many complicated feelings, of course. Not all good, fuzzy ones, but real grounded ones. It’s a very special relationship. I think it will be very touching for a lot of people. I have a lot of empathy for that relationship and for both of those characters’ history and trauma, and that shared history, as dark as it is, brings them together and there’s a lot of love between them. But, their relationship is also contentious and everything else that comes with that kind of sisterly relationship.

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I think Natasha has a lot of compassion and that’s not necessarily what I would have anticipated when we were filming Iron Man 2 or Avengers or whatever. You’ve seen glimpses of it and it’s developed over time, as we’ve been able to bring the character to the forefront in different instillaments, but she’s a very compassionate person and that passion is actually what drives a lot of her decision making. I mean, she’s also practical and pragmatic and I don’t think those two things have to necessarily work against each other. That part of her is what really touches me.

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Image via Marvel Studios

Did you know about Black Widow’s death when you started production and did that affect your mindset when you went into filming?

JOHANSSON: We started talking about this film as a reality — it’s always kind of been on the table, but I guess I just never really knew what it was going to be. It was never really clear what the space for it was. This movie would have been so different if we’d made it 10 years ago. It was a different time. I think we can all agree on that. A lot of people ask me why we didn’t do it before now, but in some ways — I’m sure there’s a lot of reasons for that — in some ways I’m actually very thankful that it’s happening now because we can actually make a movie that’s about real stuff and audiences want that. I think they always wanted that. Now the studio’s kind of caught up to that, which is fine. It’s all good. Better late than never. This movie became more of a reality, I guess, when we were shooting Infinity War, so I did know about the character’s fate.

It was helpful of course because it helped inform when we were talking about when this film would take place. That was important and also it was kind of nice in a way. There was no pressing urgency to make it, so we made it because we wanted to in a way, which is way better than making something because you have to.

There is a sort of sexualization of superheroes. How did that effect Black Widow?

JOHANSSON: Yeah. It definitely has changed and I think part of that change has probably — it’s hard because I’m inside it, but probably a lot of that is actually from me too. I’ll be 35 years old and I’m a mom and my life is different. Obviously, 10 years have passed and things have happened and I have a much different, more evolved understanding of myself. As a woman, I’m in a different place in my life, you know? And I felt more forgiving of myself, as a woman, and not — sometimes probably not enough. I’m more accepting of myself, I think. All of that is related to that move away from the kind of hyper-sexualization of this character and, I mean, you look back at Iron Man 2 and while it was really fun and had a lot of great moments in it, the character is so sexualized, you know? Really talked about like she’s a piece of something, like a possession or a thing or whatever — like a piece of ass, really. And Tony even refers to her as something like that at one point. What does he say?

“I want some.”

JOHANSSON: “I want some.” Yeah and at one point calls her a piece of meat and maybe at that time that actually felt like a compliment. You know what I mean? Because my thinking was different. Maybe I even would have, you know, my own self-worth was probably measured against that type of comment or, like a lot of young women, you come into your own and you understand your own self-worth. It’s changing now. Now people, young girls, are getting a much more positive message, but it’s been incredible to be a part of that shift and be able to come out the other side and be a part of that old story, but also progress. Evolve. I think it’s pretty cool.

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Image via Marvel Studios

What's your perspective on when this movie takes place? We know it’s right after Civil War, but what does that mean for Natasha?

JOHANSSON: Yeah, post-Civil War felt like a good time to start. I mean, we never intended to do an origin story. I never wanted to do an origin story because I just didn’t want to go back. I wanted to move forward. Even though we are going back it all makes sense when you see it. But, it felt like a good time because Natasha has always been a part of some operation. She’s always been an operative and she’s actually never really had to, for better or worse, make any decisions for herself. She’s made decisions, but she’s part of this greater whole -— whether it was the Red Room or SHEILD or The Avengers, you know -— she’s had this kind of family, for better or worse, and then after Civil War it’s gone. It’s all gone. Everything is gone and for the first time ever, really, she's just on her own. She could totally disappear into the ether and that would be that. She doesn’t have to return to anything. Which is a pretty terrifying place to be when you’ve been attached to something for so long and now you’re suddenly floating.

Obviously she’s very self-sufficient. I mean, she has connections everywhere and whatever, but she’s kind of on the lam and she’s feeling like a fugitive and it’s a really interesting place to start. Like, all the pieces are everywhere and how do we connect everything back together? When you find her in the beginning of the film she’s just broken. By the end of the film the goal is to put her back together different than before, you know? And we, Kevin and I, at the very beginning, we agreed it was clear that that was the best place to start in the timeline. It gave us a lot of grid and every possibility and we always said that if the Avengers were above and then let’s say all the villainous characters are below in some dark underground thing, the most interesting thing about Natasha is that she can go between both seamlessly and her allegiance is not always so clear. She doesn’t operate on the same moral compass and a grey area is a cool place to live.

So, heroines haven’t always been empowered in stories, but we’ve been demanding a lot more now of heroines and empowerment means different things to different people now. I was just wondering what empowerment, to you, how has it changed since you started playing Natasha and how is it interpreted in this version of Natasha?

JOHANSSON: Well, I think that actually goes back to the other question about this hyper-sexualization thing because I think actually Natasha uses her sexuality as a means to feel, to sort of manipulate a situation and then be coquettish and sly and then she’s going to take your legs out, right? She’s going to be seductive in this way, and that’s her power. Her power’s in her sexuality, and then that changed over time, right? Her strength was actually her vulnerability. That’s the kind of place that we’re in now and then in Endgame she sacrifices herself out of love. She saves her friend. She saves everyone. And I think that just being in that kind of headspace and being able to make that decision, that selfless act is so incredibly powerful. It’s amazing that she could be in that place to do that.

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Image via Marvel Studios

So, it’s been an interesting evolution and it’s been interesting to discover it with each director that I’ve worked with and what they see. What they’re interested in and what side they want to uncover. With Cate it’s just been so liberating because she’s not afraid of any of the ugliness or — it doesn’t need to be ugliness, it's even embarrassing or uncomfortable parts, like the soft underbelly, all that. That’s what she wants to make movies about. So you see Natasha's in her real, true strength in this film more than ever before.

Black Widow opens in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access on July 9th.

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