Scarlett Johansson asked that her executive producer credit be removed from “Thunderbolts*.”
In a conversation with David Harbour for Interview Magazine published Tuesday, she revealed that she had her executive producer credit taken off the film after the “Thunderbolts*” star congratulated her on it.
“It’s the opening day of a movie that basically you are the seventh Thunderbolt in,” Harbour, who plays Red Guardian in the film, said. “Your character is all over this movie … You are an executive producer on it. Congratulations.”
Johansson was quick to correct Harbour that her name is no longer attached to the movie.
“I asked to have my credit removed because I wasn’t involved,” she said.
Johansson did serve as executive producer on 2021’s “Black Widow” – the last Marvel film she starred as the titular hero. It’s also the film that served as introduction to Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova and Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster – both who star in “Thunderbolts*.” She went on to talk about her exit from the MCU and how her interest in the behemoth franchise fluctuated over the years.
“Some of the films that I did for Marvel engaged my character more than others,” she said. “Like in ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ with Chris [Evans], we were really dynamic. In some of the other films, the cast was so enormous and there was so much plot to serve that you start to feel like you’re a device to move it along. And if you’re committed to five and a half months of that, it’s like, ‘Okay. I can’t paint my nails, I can’t get a haircut.’ These sound like silly problems, but your identity is wrapped up in this job for a long time, and if you’re not doing engaging work as an actor, you feel a little cagey sometimes.”
Harbour – who along with starring in “Thunderbolts*” is gearing up for the release of the final season of “Stranger Things” at the end of the year – was shocked by how much he agreed with Johansson.
“Buddies of mine who had done TV shows for many years said, ‘By season three or four you’ll be running.’ And I was like, ‘Never! I love all these guys so much,’” he said. “And then you get to a certain point where you’re like, ‘How much more story is there?’ You’re having to play a lot of the same beat, and there’s a feeling where you’re like, ‘I want to take a risk. I want to do something that people haven’t seen me do before.’ So yeah, after 10 years, it’s like, ‘Okay.’”
Alongside Harbour and Pugh, “Thunderbolts*” also stars Sebastian Stan, Lewis Pullman, Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Kamen and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
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