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[laughs]

True story that you had, there was a sort of ceremony before you started filming?

Oh, my God.

It's so beautiful.

When you shoot in New Zealand, obviously, lots of the land is owned by tribes, and on the first day of shooting, we were invited to watch this ceremony where they do the haka, and they bless you essentially to, to shoot on their land.

And the chief came, and there's this, like, beautiful ceremony where you share breath.

So you put your forehead to forehead, and you both breathe through your nose, and it's essentially like they accept you and welcome you, and you accept them and res- and respect them.

So we started the shooting schedule with this incredible ceremony, and you cannot start shooting until you finish the ceremony.

Um, uh, did, is it true that you sort of approached it differently and tried to maybe, uh, show a little bit more of her than you might have taken away from reading it?

But what I think is most interesting, I'd love to hear you just in terms of what that was like with Zoe, and how you came to make some of those choices with, with Cathy.

Yeah, I think I'm someone that's always been very opinionated, um, about the roles that I step into.

Um, especially when we're on set, uh, I will, I will, I will argue in defense of my character, and that's something that I, um, um, I don't know how to work otherwise.

I want to know that character so well by the end, that I could argue any fight for her.

[laughs] And I feel like being able to start that process even earlier and, and try and create something that has the correct texture that you thought of when you read the script and, and has a world that feels close to the one that you imagined in your mind, is such a privilege to be able to given that opportunity.

And I s- I suppose, having Zoe as my number one cheerleader, not only did she create it, but she then asked me to come and stand with her.

I can't even begin to explain to you how that makes a young woman in the middle of her career feel to be given the opportunity to be listened to-

Mm-hmm.

Can you explain that?

I think something that I...

I was so excited to be involved with was the very idea of reimagining Cathy ever so slightly.

We've kept all of the acts that she does, all of the awful things that she does, all of the decisions that she makes are in the series, but our understanding of who she is and why she is the way that she is and the way that she got brought up and the trauma that was put onto her will have some effect on how she is throughout her life.

So I think the moment we... started to breathe love into her.

It made it just so much more interesting and she's not just one thing.

She's not- No, she's

So can you explain why you felt the need to speak up?

What was your relationship to the book before the project?

So we don't study it.

I know that you guys study it in school.

We didn't study it at school.

I read it in my early 20s and loved it.

And then when this opportunity came about, I thought long and hard about if I wanted to reread it.

And I decided against it because Zoe Kazan, who wrote the series and is the showrunner, the episodes that she gave me, even when they were early drafts, were just absolutely phenomenal.

You have some mutual friends who say, no, it's

Which, by the way, I did hear that Tom Holland just randomly mentioned you in some interview.

Oh, you know this all happened because of Tom.

So years ago, when I had just kind of started my relationship with Marvel and Black Widow had come out, and I, I don't, my Yelena wasn't as obviously big as all of the other big superheroes.

He, on the red carpet of his previous movie, when someone said, "Who do you wanna do the next movie with? Do you wanna be with, like, Thor and..." I don't, I don't remember the superheroes, but they were, like, all massive superheroes.

And he said, "No, actually, I wanna, I wanna do it with Florence Pugh, who plays Yelena." So because of that, fans were then, like, so excited about the idea of it, and that started the ball rolling, so thanks to Tom.

Thank you.

That's insane.

And what else? Oh, I found an amazing photography book that was, um, from a, a photographer that took pictures of prostitutes during that time, and it was a pr- it was like a private kind of collection.

So

if you go on to the thin slice rather than what you do on Parmesan and you grate the garlic and put it in the oil and then mix it around, it will start kind of getting all good and juicy pretty much after 10, 15 minutes.

I'm sure I could find it.

Yeah.

Like strip that up, put that on your pizza with goat's cheese and some of your pesto and actually your garlic and you'll have an awesome pizza.

I mean,

all I can say, Donald, is you're just going to put some olive oil and two cloves of garlic in one.

Okay.

And then in another one, you're going to do olive oil, chili flakes, and a little bit of pesto.

It's

actually really good to see your faces because obviously it's a podcast, so you don't see faces.

And Jean was also an incredibly smart woman who happened to believe in something that was verboten at the time and became persona non grata as a result.

One thing that Chris did really well in the script was describing her as being blunt, knew what she wants, but at no point is she ever punished for that, and especially not by Oppenheimer.

We did a few nudity scenes and a few sex scenes, and everything about her in those moments is completely in control.

Watching a woman like that in that much power, especially during that era, is a very powerful thing.

I'm not gonna leave them hanging, so we're going to succeed or fail together.

I think every single person has come to set knowing that they have been hired because somewhere along the line Chris thought that you did a good job, and this goes for crew as well.

Like, I've never been in an environment where the crew and the cast are so desperate to show what they can do that it creates this incredible, um, buzz.