Florence Pugh Talks ‘Thunderbolts*’ Jump Scene & How Stepping Into The Mindset Of Her Character “Saved” Her From Feelings Of Fear​on April 29, 2025 at 2:57 am

Ahead of its release, Thunderbolts* has been touted as a different kind of Marvel movie, by stars including Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan, as well as early critic reviews that praise the tentpole project for injecting the MCU with “new blood and direction.”

Particularly, much ado has naturally been made about Pugh’s “superb” reprisal as Yelena, the ex-Black Widow and grieving sister to Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), especially given the star’s determination to do a stunt that would make even Tom Cruise’s eyes water. During the press tour, Pugh previously discussed pestering Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige in order to be able to jump off the second-tallest building in the world, at 2,227 feet and eclipsed only by the Burj Khalifa.

“I actually think stepping into the mind of Yelena saved me because in that scene she’s not supposed to be scared, she’s supposed to just be, like, chilling up there,” the We Live In Time actress told Deadline at the Los Angeles red carpet premiere of the latest Marvel entry. “So I had to just pretend like I was her. ‘It’s fine, I’m just dangling with my feet off that insane height.’ So it actually saved me.”

Speaking to the emotional complexity of her character, she added, “It’s our duty as actors to protect and defend your characters and to put in the life. There’s so much that’s on the page, but it’s really what you add to it in the last 20% that actually makes every character that any actor plays. There’s so many -isms that I was very welcomed into putting into the movie.”

Set to bow in theaters on May 2, Thunderbolts* also stars Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The Jake Schreier-helmed pic follows the assembling of an unlikely team of antiheroes whose dangerous mission leads them to confront the dark contours of their pasts.