I was invited by Disney to attend this event. All of my expenses were paid, but I promise all opinions are my own.
I am so excited to share the content and details from our interview with Jeremy Renner who is Hawkeye + Elizabeth Olsen who is Scarlet Witch at the Captain America event earlier this month. Of course, I was excited for all of the interviews, but I think I was most excited for this one, I just thought that it would be fun to meet and chat with the both of them – I was right ;). Captain America: Civil War will be in theaters on May 6, 2016 – have you purchased your tickets yet? I hope you enjoy hearing this interview as much as I did – don’t worry, there aren’t any spoilers.
Before we all went to the Captain America Event we had to say whether we were on #TeamIronMan or #TeamCap. Then we all decided to wear our respective shirts to the interviews so that we could show support to our team. When Jeremy and Elizabeth walked in they immediately noticed the amount of Stark shirts in the audience and Jeremy said “we’re gonna have a problem.” That was a nice way to start the interviews off!
In the comics, your (Jeremy Renner) character is mostly deaf. How would you feel about them introducing that into the Marvel cinematic Universe?
Jeremy – I keep hearing about that and it isn’t really kind of played out at this point. Not unless we say he’s got an amazing hearing aid or something. We were focused much more on the alternate sort of version of not the big purple mask sort of guy. They talked about that, but I don’t think its going to play anytime soon- things are a little late.
Could you guys tell us a little bit about your stunts and how much were you and how much were the stuntmen?
Elizabeth – I think we do as many stunts as we can and then they sometimes take a second crew out or they’ll film things when we’ve already been wrapped from the movie. When they’re in Germany, they might do stuff then. But when we are there, we do everything.
Jeremy – Yea, its almost just practical stuff. I don’t do CGI. It happens outside the arrows- you know you fire the arrow because its gotta go somewhere right? You know….. at the cameraman. I say about 99% of the scripted stunts are us though.
Elizabeth – Also, I don’t like having a stunt person do what I do. They have to mesh a move because its not like a role or a fall.
Jeremy – There’s one flip or something I cannot do so my stuntman did it all. He’s awesome.
What inspired you to do the role of Scarlet Witch?
Elizabeth – I was already a fan of Ironman and the Avengers. I saw it with my Dad when I worked in Servia – it was about the second time seeing it and I loved it. Then when I told my older brother who loves comics that I was meeting with Joss, but I didn’t know what character I was going to be and Joss started to explain who Scarlet Witch was it and he said ‘just know when you look at the comics, you will not look like that.’ I will not put you in a leotard and a cape and a head cast. I started to read more about her journey and I found the fact that her mind is the only thing that limits her and this kind of insanity and being able to manipulate reality are really cool things to me. I didn’t know when they would come into play or if they will, and I still hope we play around more with her. I just think shes a really cool character, it’s a lot of opportunity for storytelling.
In your role as Hawkeye do you need extra training for the bow? Do you bow hunt?
Jeremy – No, I didn’t do any extra training. Every time its a different sort of setup with the bow and what’s happening with the tech and stuff.
There’s a lot of action and humor in the movie. Did you guys have improv or was that something they wrote in?
Jeremy – The Russo brothers were great. They’d always have alt lines for certain scenes and these sort of one-liners and they would let you kind of run with it, a bunch of different things. We always did the alt lines and then they’ll pull it back and let’s just go roll the series. They liked to have options. That was the funnest part of the job, probably, improvising.
Is there any real-life tension between the actors?
Elizabeth and Jeremy both agreed that there was not any real-life tension between the actors but when on to explain a little more about the actors.
Jeremy – Paul Bettany who is in such an uncomfortable costume and he’s like sweating through these prosthetics. He can’t take them off, he’s miserable but he’s still one of the funniest people on set. Everyone just has a good attitude. If we complain, we complain and laugh about it and move on. You can’t really complain about it, its a really awesome job.
Can you share an on-set story that was funny that happened while you guys worked together?
Elizabeth – I mean one of my favorites is you (Jeremy), me and Paul filming just because it was so funny. It was really odd to film that scene because you have two not so practical powers of actors. It was like four in the morning when we were filming that, we were exhausted. We were giggly and loopy, that was a hilarious day on set.
A lot of people are asking about a Hawkeye film. How would you feel about that?
Jeremy – That’s above my pay grade and I don’t make those decisions but I think that there’s a lot to explore and understand like the how and why and what – just the reason to do it. I do love the character and I am always willing to do it and explore more until they kill me. Or until I’m 50 and tired. No one wants to see an old man in tights!
What’s next for you guys?
Elizabeth – We’re filming a movie in Park City together right now which is awesome.
We saw on their Instagram and Twitter feeds that they were skiing and snowmobiling. So we asked them about that and if the filming had them in that location to be able to enjoy those things.
Elizabeth – Yea, we’re chasing the snow up there because it takes place on an Indian Reservation that is in Wyoming. The elements and the weather is kind of the antagonist in the story. So, we’re chasing the blizzards and snow. We have 2 weeks left of filming. It’s a really fun job and it’s fun to get to work together in a totally different way.
We asked Jeremy if he ever had a role that he was offered and turned down that he regretted?
Jeremy – Never. I’m always happy with the decisions I’m making. No regrets ever with anything in life even when I make a mistake or do something wrong. As long as you learn and grow from it, that’s all that matters.
Was it difficult to change the dynamic that you have with Black Widow from the previous movie to this movie?
Jeremy – Yeah, I supposed there’s always things that they serve up from the first time we’re together. There’s a lot of history with those characters so I guess I can go off and do whatever but I love working with Scarlett and I love that character of Widow. I think Hawkeye and Black Widow have a good history and a lot of secrets.