New Photo of Black Widow in CIVIL WAR, ScarJo Talks About Widow's Role in The Conflict
Entertainment Weekly is back with yet another interview with a cast member of the upcoming Marvel film Captain America: Civil War. Along with debuting a new image of Black Widow, Steve Rogers (Captain America), Sam Wilson (Falcon), and Sharon Carter (Agent 13), the magazine spoke with star Scarlett Johansson to ask her about Black Widow's role in the conflict between Captain America and Iron Man:
Widow appeared to be leading the team of new Avengers we saw at the end of Ultron, gathered at their headquarters.
Yeah, I don’t know if she’s leading this team but she’s certainly, she’s — I think Natasha’s a very strategic thinker and that’s her strongpoint. Her superpowers, if you want to call them that, are her experience, her ability to make usually the right decision in a quick moment, in a tight minute. And she’s not personally invested. I mean, that’s what she tells herself anyway. And so that keeps her head kind of level and clear.
She seems to be leaning strongly toward Iron Man’s side of things.
I think when you find her in Civil War, she’s looking to strategize her position, putting herself in a place where she is able to let the powers that be fight it out or whatever amongst themselves. She’s always a little bit on the perimeter so she can have a better perspective of what’s really going on.
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You know, I think she understands where everyone is coming from. And none of it really matters to her, you know? There’s a bigger problem at hand and she’s, I think, strangely, kind of the mediator. Which is not exactly how you would imagine her to be. But I think she really does see both sides of the coin and I think her strength is that she’s not personally involved.
The outlet visited the set of the movie and described a brief scene they saw being filmed:
In one scene EW watched being filmed this summer, she and Tony Stark have a quiet moment after being given an ultimatum to bring down the rogue Cap — or else the U.S. government will do it in permanent fashion.
Stark rubs at the center of his chest, where his ARC reactor was once embedded. “You know the problem with a fully functional heart…? It’s stressful,” he tells Natasha.
She’s all business: “We are painfully understaffed.”
“It’d be pretty awesome if we had a Hulk,” he tells her.
But they don’t. And Widow, still harboring feelings for Bruce Banner, who was last seen venturing off into self-imposed isolation in the Avengers’ Quinjet — knows that better than anyone.
So, naturally, they asked about the effects of the relationship explored in Ultron between Widow and Hulk:
How did Bruce Banner going away at the end of the last movie leave her feeling, after she reached out to him and he turned her away — then ran away?
I imagine that there are a couple of ways you could respond to that. Maybe you want to call it abandonment or whatever it is, exactly. Vulnerability, rejection. I think that you can turn inward and be very hurt and bitter and that would have been an easier choice. But she understands that Banner did what he had to do. Certainly she’s not going to be the person to chastise someone who’s not ready to open up. I don’t think she’s taking it personally.
Is she kind of like, “Hey, your loss?”
I don’t think even it’s that. I think she’s just, it’s not the right time. It’s one of those things where you think of the person with a lot of fondness. You keep that in a warm place in your heart for them. It would have been very easy for us to take that and turn it into bitterness in this film and have her be reactive. But that would be out of character, I think.
Will that storyline continue?
I don’t know. There is little room for romance in Civil War; I think there is a lot going on that doesn’t really involve big heart-to-hearts. I mean it’s certainly in there and there’s references to it. But this is not the opportunity for us to explore the Widow’s deep, personal backstory.
Sounds like Johansson is still holding out a little bit of hope that Widow and Hulk will end up getting together at some point in the future of the MCU. In the meantime, she'll apparently be a voice of reason in the carnage that is Civil War. You can read more with her in the full interview at EW. If this morning is any indication, there's much more information to come about Captain America: Civil War before the movie eventually hits theaters on May 6th, 2016.