Florence Pugh: My journey with Marvel was because of Scarlett Johansson trusting me

The 29-year-old actress is starring in the leading role of Yelena Belova in the new Marvel film begun when Johansson asked her to join the 2021 film 'Black Widow'.

She told The Hollywood Reporter: "My whole journey with Marvel was because of Scarlett trusting me and Scarlett wanting me to join her movie ('Black Widow') six years ago. So I always miss her presence, and I always feel like it was such a mean thing to begin the journey with someone and then you never get to work with them again on it.

"It was kind of wild that ('Black Widow') was the first and the last time I would get to experience this world with her. But I am genuinely always just hoping that she’s proud. I always have that in the back of my head, like, 'Oh, I hope she’s happy that we came in.' So I do miss her a lot on set, yes. We would have a lot of laughter. "

She talked extensively about her record-breaking stunt for the film, which saw her perform a 2,000 ft drop from Malaysia's Merdeka 118 tower, and said that it wasn't necessarily her own "idea" to execute it, but insisted that it the scene be restored when it was temporarily removed before filming, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

She said: "So what I will say is that it wasn’t my idea to go up there. That was already in the script, and it was already such an impressive way to start a script by having someone fall off a building. I was just really, really amazed that they had written that version of an opening.

"And then, when it got taken out, that was when I really got sassy. But, of course, anything that Tom Cruise does, stunt-wise and acting-wise, is just totally impressive. I mean, I’d be mad if I didn’t want to pretend that I was him for two seconds.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be flying any machines or riding any motorbikes, but this was a perfect amount of stunt for me. So it certainly was fun to pretend to be Tom Cruise for a few seconds.”