Editor's note: The below interview contains spoilers for Episode 4 of Hawkeye, "Partners, Am I Right?"
Hawkeye, which premiered November 24 on Disney+, picks up with the continuing story of the MCU two years after the universe-changing circumstances of Avengers: Endgame. Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) is hoping to spend a quiet and uneventful Christmas with his family, but those plans get derailed quickly when his path crosses with that of Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), a skilled archer who has her own personal history with Hawkeye. The series also promises to follow up on the aftermath of the MCU film Black Widow, which saw Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) being mistakenly led to believe that Clint was responsible for Natasha Romanoff's (Scarlett Johansson) death on Vormir. The show also stars Vera Farmiga, Fra Fee, Tony Dalton, Zahn McClarnon, Brian d'Arcy James, and Alaqua Cox, as well as Jolt the Golden Retriever as Lucky the Pizza Dog.
This week, Collider had the chance to chat with directors Bert and Bertie, who are responsible for helming Episodes 3 through 5 of the Disney+ series, after the premiere of Episode 4, "Partners, Am I Right?". Over the course of the interview, which you can both watch above and read below, the duo spoke about how the single-take shot in Episode 3's car chase scene came together and what people might be surprised to know about the behind-the-scenes process. They also discussed the logistics behind trying to produce an episode of television around a big cameo reveal, like in Episode 4, and how Hawkeye shares at least one surprising similarity with another series they directed: Hulu's The Great.
Collider: What was a moment where, when you read it in the script, there was an immediate sense of visualizing how you wanted to render it on-screen, whether it was a small character moment or a big action set piece?
BERTIE: Was it instant? I'm not quite sure if it was instant for us but it came very soon after, in the car chase in 103, was knowing that we wanted to stay with our characters and be in the experience with them and experiencing at least the first part of that car chase from inside the car with that 360 revolving camera. And it might have been the case because we'd just recently watched the indie movie Waves and they do a lovely character development piece a little bit like that. And so it's very much inspired by that, but like, what happens if you choreograph the action around this moving camera? So the action happens just in time for us to see it at each beat, just in time for us to come back for the dialogue and keep in it and keep in the relationship with them until Kate goes out the window and then we break that.
BERT: We also knew we wanted at some point for them both to be wearing really bad sweaters, Christmas sweaters, very important character development. So we made sure that happened.
I feel like that's a crucial part of any kind of Christmas-set story. I love that you brought up the Episode 3 car chase and that single-take scene because I think that's something that fans have been buzzing about since we got a first glimpse of it, and then seeing it last week. For both of you, what's one thing that people might be surprised to know about behind the scenes? What goes into making a shot like that happen?
BERT: So much. We actually started working on that before we were in Atlanta for the shoot. So, a good month and a half, two months before we work with the team on starting to bring that to life. Like it's extensive, and from talking about what's shot in New York, what's not, how you do it, where your cameras are, you know, the technical side of it — and then trusting your team to help bring that together in the best way possible. And right up until a few weeks before we were still talking about how to shoot it and we had some backup options on the day if something didn't work.
So it was a continually evolving scene, both technically and creatively, but we feel like by the end of it, deciding on how many arrows and how many cars exploded, it all kind of came together, but it took a good three to four months to work on that.
Given this week's episode and the, I would say, Florence Pugh of it all, how difficult is it to try and go through producing a normal episode of television while also trying to hide a big character reveal like that? I'm assuming there's a lot of moving pieces involved.
BERTIE: Well, especially in Episode 4, you don't see it coming because you haven't had the seed so much of it. I mean, we, we talk of about the Natasha of it all in that, what we call the kind of the Christmas montage, where Kate and Clint become closer as friends than they've ever been. But in terms of disguising it throughout, you've got this person who appears on the roof in a mask — and if you know the comics you'll recognize kind of the lights on the mask. And so there was... I'm sure there were fans who were already going, oh, this is it, this is it, this is it. But at that point, we just have to let that action play out and, and the reveal happens when the reveal happens.
For both of you, you've worked on another fabulous show in The Great. Is there anything that surprised you in terms of similarities between a show like that and this one, even though, on the surface, the genres are very different?
BERT: Yeah. I think actually one thing, this is more a technical thing, is just The Great had a lot of corridors, a lot of great walk and talks. And I think that's something that we really fell in love with is just keep your characters moving. And because Clint and Kate are always on a mission, it was a natural kind of inclination of ours to keep them on the move as much as possible and that was something that came across from what we enjoyed doing on The Great and really implemented here to keep our story moving. That's a very technical learning.
BERTIE: Tonally, The Great is different in so many ways, but there's an absurdity to The Great and kind of like real human emotion in crazy situations. And that's similar to what Kate and Clint are. They're real humans. And then the LARPers get involved and like the Tracksuit Mafia are like a bit ridiculous and also dangerous. And in Catherine's story, she's a woman going through this world of Peter where crazy stuff can happen at any given moment. And she just has to roll with punches. So in that way, you can find connections between the two.
The first four episodes of Hawkeye are currently available to stream on Disney+, with new episodes premiering weekly each Wednesday.