Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova was one of the surprise (well, sort of — Kevin Feige did tease it in advance) appearances in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” this summer and, according to the actress, fans have Tom Holland himself to thank for that.
Pugh stopped by “The Tonight Show” on Monday night, in support of her new Netflix series “East of Eden,” which premieres October 1, and conceded that, between “Brand New Day,” “East of Eden,” “Dune: Part Three” and “Avengers: Doomsday,” she’s pretty busy this year. When Fallon noted that he’d heard Pugh got into “Brand New Day” thanks to an offhand Holland comment, she immediately confirmed that.
“This all happened because of Tom!” she said. “So, years ago, when I had just kind of started my relationship with Marvel, and “Black Widow” had come out, and my Yelena wasn’t obviously as big as all of the other big superheroes, he, on the red carpet of his previous movie, when someone said ‘Who do you want to do the next movie with? Do you want to be with, like, Thor?’”
“And he said ‘No, actually, I want to do it with Florence Pugh, who plays Yelena,’” Pugh continued. “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 Tom!”
Indeed, in 2021, Holland told ET at the premiere of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” that “I think a really cool Spider-Man/Black Widow movie would be a fun little twist.” Of course, the feeling was very much mutual.
In fact, when Pugh was asked something similar in a 2023 Buzzfeed interview, she immediately picked out Spider-Man as the hero she’d want to see Yelena with.
“I think they’d be so silly together. It would be so fun, as well,” she said at the time. “And I’ve been desperate to meet Tom for such a long time.”
You can watch Florence Pugh’s full interview on “The Tonight Show” in the video above.
