Actress Florence Pugh became a “sassy Karen” as she campaigned to perform a dangerous stunt in upcoming movie Thunderbolts.
The 29-year-old – who reprises her 2021’s Black Widow role of Yelena Belova in the upcoming Marvel Studios blockbuster – was warned she’d be unable to jump off Malaysia’s Merdeka 118 tower for insurance purposes, but she was determined to make it happen.
Speaking to American ticketing company Fandango, she said: “It was in the script, and then slowly as we got closer and closer to shooting, they were like, ‘Yeah, we don’t think it’s going to happen, it’s just gonna be a crazy insurance ordeal, and obviously we’re not going to throw Florence off the second-tallest building in the world.’
“I was like, ‘What the f**k, of course we are. We have to do that!’”
Pugh got in touch directly with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige to plead her case for leaping from the 678.9-metre structure.
She continued: “So I was being a sassy Karen just emailing Kevin and being like, ‘Kevin, this is going to do wonders for the press tour, we have to do this!’”
Ultimately, after her “pushing” to do the stunt, producers agreed and said: “Okay, if you want to fall off the second-tallest building in the world, we’ll figure that out for you.”
The Midsommar actress doesn’t “mind heights” and quite “enjoys them” but being on top of the Merdeka 118 tower was a “whole different ballgame that was insane”.
She added: “The mental control I had to do that day was like – that was its own superpower.”
While exact plot details about Thunderbolts – which will also star actors Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, David Harbour, Lewis Pullman, Hannah John-Kamen and Julia Louis-Dreyfus – are being kept under wraps, the film will follow the team of anti-heroes as they are forced to complete a secret mission for the shady CIA operative Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
And Stan – who will be reprising his role as James ‘Bucky’ Barnes, aka The Winter Soldier – recently teased that the film has similarities to 1985 classic The Breakfast Club.
In an interview with entertainment news platform Entertainment Tonight, he shared: “I think this movie is very singular and will stand on its own. I know these are bold words, but there’s no other Marvel group that you can kind of compare us to, it’s its own thing.
“It’s like The Breakfast Club; that’s the best way of describing it. A pair of misfits that hopefully don’t kill each other.”
