Thunderbolts* star Florence Pugh has said she fought so that she could do her own record-breaking stunt in the Marvel movie, saying she "was being a sassy Karen".
The upcoming movie, which is set for release on 1 May in the UK, sees a group of Marvel anti-heroes team up to undertake a dangerous mission.
Reprising her the role from 2021's Black Widow, Pugh stars as Yelena Belova. She is joined on the cast by Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, David Harbour as Red Guardian, and Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster.
Speaking to Fandango, Pugh said she emailed Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige urging him to let her do her own stunt after learning that her stunt double would be taking on a particularly scary scene.
In the scene, Pugh's character jumps from the top of Kuala Lumpur's Merdeka 118, which is the second tallest building in the world and stands at a staggering 2,722 feet tall.
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“I got on all the emails," Pugh explained. "It was in the script, and then slowly as we got closer and closer to shooting, they said they don’t think it’s going to happen because it’s a crazy insurance ordeal and obviously we’re not going to throw [me] off the second tallest building in the world."
"I was like, 'What the f**k? Of course we are! We have to do that'," she added, before revealing how she eventually convinced Feige to let her jump.
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"I was being a sassy Karen emailing Kevin [Feige] and saying it’s going to do wonders for the press tour," she said. "We have to do this! We’re going to have three women break three different Guinness World Records and we’ll do this and this.
"I had to keep on pushing and then they’re like, 'Okay, if you want to fall off the second tallest building, we’ll figure it out for you'. I don’t mind heights. I quite like them and enjoy them, but that was a whole different ballgame and insane. The mental control I had to do that day was its own superpower."
Thunderbolts* will be released in UK cinemas on 1 May, and US cinemas on 2 May.
Reporter, Digital Spy
Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV and movies at Digital Spy.
A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.
In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.
