Six days until Christmas.
We're gonna do a lot of activities.
What's your favorite one?
- Gingerbread house. - We're doing that!
- Christmas movie marathon. - Movie marathon, awesome!
- Ugly sweaters. - Ugly Christmas sweaters!
It's going to be amazing,
but most important thing,
we're going to do it all together.
We were in the second half of 2017,
and we were in the trailer,
the Marvel trailer,
and Endgame was filming,
and we started talking about what the Hawkeye story could be.
We haven't gotten a chance
to really tell the Clint Barton story,
tell Hawkeye's story.
Endgame is when you really see that emotional journey
that he started going through with his family,
by losing his family in the Blip,
and getting them back,
but in between that time, becoming Ronin.
So, we started sort of breaking the story,
brainstorming ideas,
and I remember sitting in that trailer
as we were still shooting Endgame, going,
"God, there's so much
great source material from the comics,
"and how am I gonna actually
put this all in two hours?"
We thought, "Well,
if there's a lot more story to tell,
"why not just move that project
over to the Disney Plus side?"
Then you say, "Kate, come on!"
You fire the arrow, then you run to join,
and you go, "Jump!"
The show's got everything that we could want.
So, we've been able to flex,
you know, our different muscles,
but just on another scale that,
you know, we hoped we'd get to one day
and, kind of, here we are.
- So that's been, it's been exciting. Yeah. - It's fun crashing cars into each other.
So good.
- Almost like, it comes... - As it comes, and I look...
- As it lands, I go in. Okay. - You look, and... Yeah, exactly.
I've found him compelling,
the way Jeremy's played him.
There's a sense of this ordinary guy
that is just driven kind of by
this sense of duty more than anything.
He's not... Doesn't have the protection of superpowers,
and I found it interesting that you get to join him,
and you see him in this place where, on the surface,
he's found the peace that possibly he's always wanted,
but you know that there's been this price that's been paid.
When you watch Avengers: Endgame,
obviously, the stakes couldn't be bigger.
This purple guy's gonna snap half the universe away,
and we gotta travel through time to stop him.
But it's because you saw this human being's family disappear
at the beginning,
and you can imagine, empathize with him.
That carries you throughout that entire movie.
Let me go.
No.
No!
And it's amazing what happens when you've let,
you know, actors like Jeremy Renner
really have the space to explore
their character and their backstory.
I love you guys.
- Love you, too. - Love you, too, Dad.
- Love you... - It's gonna be the best Christmas!
It's been a wonderful way to kind of just
really dig in and discover a lot more
of the humanity of who Clint Barton is.
Okay, Kate, what am I selling?
It's obviously not, you know,
Halloween costumes and toys and t-shirts, right?
Inspiration.
That's where patience really kind of pans out.
'Cause Thor was just a quick little cameo thing,
and to get in the first Avengers,
and then, "Hey, guess what?"
You're not Hawkeye,
'cause he's become Loki's,
you know, sidekick.
You have heart.
Like, I'm still trying to figure this guy out.
If I put an arrow through Loki's eye socket,
I would sleep better, I suppose.
But then, in Ultron,
when they cemented the family life,
I think that was a huge thing
just for the original six Avengers.
It just became, like,
"What are we doing this all for?"
And grounding it to, like, what is,
you know, the real value, and values.
That was a great leap for the character.
You know I totally support your avenging.
I couldn't be prouder.
But I see those guys...
Those gods...
You don't think they need me.
I think they do, which is a lot scarier.
It started to really cement for me,
and I had to sort of redefine
in my head what a superhero is,
and what a superpower really is,
and that's where the connectivity
of every human, every fan, or whatever,
can come through someone like Clint Barton.
Wow.
Under different circumstances...
this would be totally awesome.
Really, he knows this character inside out.
So, I think it's very important to Jeremy to make sure that
what we're establishing,
what we're continuing
to tell about this character is true.
And Jeremy is very much
into the truth about the character.
So, he puts in the extra effort to make sure that,
"You know what, this does make sense."
The lines that he's saying is correct
and true to how Clint Barton would react.
You know, at the end of the day,
my job is to hurt people.
- You were a hero. - I was a weapon.
I remember having a Zoom call and, like,
"Guys, I think in the first two weeks of shooting this
"I've said more than I've said the entire MCU universe thus far."
All right, so this rescue mission, it's got a part two?
Yeah. What do I look like?
- Are you Tabatha? - Yes, that's me.
That's not an Uber Pool? For God's sakes!
Just to find his voice and find timing and rhythm
and just all that sort of stuff,
they were all discoveries
I was making throughout the show.
And a lot of those come from
ad-libbing and just allowing us
as artists to be able to channel
these characters through us and really try to find it.
I'm sorry. I got so excited that he was saying,
"It was you," I got wrapped up in it.
- Hey. - Yeah, it is.
Clint Barton from the Ultimate Comics,
that was the version that was shown
in the previous Avengers movies.
You know, the more serious action superhero.
But what I found more interesting
that I wanted to explore more in this particular series
is the Matt Fraction version of Clint Barton,
you know, who is a little bit of the reckless,
you know, loner, but so funny and quirky.
I thought, who else better to draw
that out of him but Kate Bishop?
She is just a young, early 20-year-old girl
who really aspired to be a superhero
because she saw when she was eight years old,
and in the series, what Clint Barton could do as Hawkeye
when he did that backward flip in Avengers
and saved her and everybody else in New York.
I think that really inspired her to go,
"You know what? I can be like him.
"I just have to work hard,
and I have to push myself."
Are you okay? By the way?
I'm good. Yeah! No, I'm fine.
You should see the other guys.
Kate, you know, is someone
who grew up with this figure in her life
as a role model, you know, unbeknownst to him.
And watching her, you know,
meet him and prove herself to him,
it's a perspective on the Avengers that I think
is closer for the audience in terms of, like,
"What would it be like to be there
"and what's the aftermath
of going through that experience?"
Come on!
You're Hawkeye!
And who the hell are you?
I think in the back of
Kevin's mind, he had Hailee as Kate.
We actually just said, "Let's meet Hailee,
"let's just have a conversation with her and see how that goes."
And I remember, after the conversation,
Kevin just offered her the role right then and there.
So that was pretty remarkable
that we came out of that meeting shaking her hand
and going, "Okay, you're in.
You're gonna play Kate Bishop."
I didn't know much about Kate Bishop
other than fans were very excited
about her story being brought to life.
And from there, I just dove right in.
And it's always so fun to play a character
that has all of this pre-existing information
and a fanbase nonetheless.
So, I was very excited to meet with the team
and hear what they were thinking
as far as who this character was
and what elements from the comics
they were going to portray.
She's, you know, a young woman
growing up in New York City,
and she's got a lot of wit.
I built the suit myself
when I was trapped in a cave once
so, I had a lot of time on my hands, and I just felt...
That's very good.
She's so funny, she's so grounded,
so there's no point at which she's playing
for the comedy or the gags,
and it's a really challenging role to kind
of get right because of Kate's eagerness,
and also because of her privilege,
she could tip into being the annoying whippersnapper.
But she just holds it because there's this
endearing quality that I think we,
as women trying to get by in the world,
recognize in ourselves,
so she really has this wonderful vibrancy.
Hey, look, it's you.
No, it's not, that's Katniss. Let's go.
I do love her.
Cut!
It's been so fun doing this thing with Jeremy.
I remember sitting down with him
for the first time over this project
and just really getting right into it,
and right away, I felt this sense of comfort,
knowing that this is a world
he has been in for ten years.
What are you doing here?
We're too exposed.
Come on. Take cover.
I kinda took the role of shepherding
her into, like, how Marvel works,
and how, with all the stunts,
and then this and that,
and the chaos of schedules,
and then there's a lot going on...
She just fell into trust with me
because I was looking after her in those ways.
- Yeah, I leave the car, then you fire... - Okay.
- ...then we meet. - Okay.
When you have that,
then true art can then exist
'cause you have trust with one another.
You're imparting wisdom. Love this part.
- Please, tell me which part. - You know, come on.
The part where the old cop
comes back for one last job,
and then imparts wisdom on his young,
surprisingly capable partner.
Yeah, I'm not imparting anything on you.
He was very wonderful in showing me the ropes
and, you know, collaborating with me
in finding this amazing dynamic between Clint and Kate.
He's thrown into this energetic environment,
he's thrown up against this energetic character in Kate,
and so to constantly bring that guy up against just too much energy
and a situation that's out of his control...
That was fun.
This is the part where you finish
my sentence with a plan.
Planning's not really my thing.
Are you sure that's dry erase?
I remember, even the initial pitch they were telling me about is,
like, it's six days till Christmas, and I'm with the kids,
and everything kind of goes south.
We originally had Clint with his family back at his home in Iowa
as the opening of introducing Clint in the Hawkeye series.
We then shifted the story of his introduction
to being in New York instead.
Jesus, really?
Merry Christmas, pal.
Being able to start production in New York was really a blessing.
It's so unique, and it's so special,
and the energy there can't be replicated, really.
You go to New York
and you know you're in New York.
You go into the city, and you know you're there.
And you go in during Christmas-time,
and it's really unlike anything else.
Getting as much of the real texture
and the real flavor of New York
and feeling these different neighborhoods was wonderful.
To get the scale and those vistas,
and the streets, and the dirt,
and the colors, and the people,
and the energy of New York
was important 'cause it's another character in this show.
You know what is right up the street, you guys?
- The biggest... - Burger King!
The biggest Christmas tree ever,
at the Rockefeller Center.
How about we go see that, huh?
Clint is sort of always trying to retire.
I don't think you can ever retire as a superhero.
I think you live or die.
It's one of those things.
But he's just in New York with his family,
he's not thinking about anything else
besides getting back home.
He actually is in New York
for a very specific reason,
and that's because he's been invited to Rogers, The Musical,
and all of the Avengers got invited,
but no one showed up except for Clint.
It was something that I think all of us had joked about
and probably even slightly performed on set, you know,
with all of our props and whatnot,
'cause everybody is musical in some sort of way in the Avengers.
But to have it come together and actually see it.
It's pretty spectacular.
I was really impressed,
- this is a lot of production. - It was special. It was special.
All right, we're gonna set it for the top again.
When I came on, there was mention of a Rogers, the Musical in the script.
It was like a little layer that was there, and immediately
I was like, "Well, why...
Like, you have to see the musical.
"We're gonna mention it.
Let's do the musical."
Kevin absolutely loves the idea so much that
he wanted us to actually create
an entire song of four and a half minutes.
So, we got Marc Shaiman to write
the song for us, which is incredible.
I can't believe we got to work with Marc Shaiman.
The first time I met Kevin Feige...
I was at an Academy Award function,
the year of Mary Poppins Returns,
and someone came over to me from Disney and said,
"Kevin Feige would really like to meet you."
And I thought, "This is a prank."
'Cause my husband, Lou,
is the biggest Marvel nerd on Earth.
I thought, "Did Lou call someone and set them up to..."
But anyway, there was Kevin Feige,
so I went over to him,
and he was like, all film score nerding out on me.
I was like, "But you're Kevin Feige,
and if only my husband, Lou, was here."
And then, this phone call came about writing a song
for a Marvel television show, once again,
I thought, "Lou has put them up to this."
So, Kevin says, "I would really like
there to be a full Broadway musical number
"of an Avengers musical."
So, luckily, all the years I had gone
to see all the movies with Lou,
and then sat in the car afterwards,
and he would explain to me what I had just seen,
and he explained to me all the Easter eggs and all the history,
so I actually knew words like "Chitauri" and "Tesseract."
I mean, I never thought I'd be
writing lyrics with rhyming Tesseract.
Six, seven, and...
I've got to get the Tesseract The battle's just begun
We'll conquer the Chitauri Get shawarma when we're done
We came into this whole thing,
and it was kind of already built,
and they plugged Ty and I right in.
We immediately started learning choreography,
and by, like, the second day,
we kind of learned the whole number.
I was surprised at how similar it is to
what I actually do for a living
when I go do a show on Broadway.
It's completely different for me
because I haven't done a Broadway show
in about 30 years, 25 years,
and I was thinking that
it was gonna be easy.
I thought that we were gonna come in,
and it was gonna be, you know,
a musical that felt like a TV show,
and that you weren't going to have to do much choreography,
and I wasn't gonna be sweating for eight hours in a rehearsal,
and as it turns out, we're doing a real musical here.
We cast everybody here locally in Atlanta,
and because we're dealing with, you know,
the COVID pandemic, we couldn't do
what we would normally do, which would be,
you know, a big giant cattle call,
and then the hard part was finding
the people who could play the Avengers.
Officially Tony Stark. I'm shook.
I'm like, "What? Who's that?"
Never did I think I'd be on a stage...
acting as Hawkeye, being Hawkeye, and, you know,
shootin' arrows, killing bad guys while,
you know, singing and dancing.
A lot of the dancers have these special skills where
Maya Shimoguchi, our production designer,
did an incredible, incredible job at creating the set.
The bridge is something that we really built as a bridge.
It has a span of 45 feet.
As you can see, most of it is cutouts.
It was hard because there was nowhere where we could build it
and see the whole thing together until
we'd actually installed it at the theater.
So, all the pieces were built separately in different buildings,
so actually seeing it together was
a huge relief that it actually worked.
Let's go again and we'll do the boulder thing, right?
And playback.
Hulk, you know the magic word is
Smash. Smash. Smash
Save the city, help us win
I just remember going into the pre-film day,
and just watching it all live,
in front of me, and going,
"I can't believe we're doing this,
but this is pretty, pretty amazing."
It's a bummer 'cause Kevin really wanted
to be there and he didn't get a chance to,
Now, you may recall a masked vigilante
who terrorized organized crime in this city for years.
He brought a brutal form of justice to his victims,
and his identity continues to remain a mystery to this very day.
A lot of the story and backstory in this show is
about what happened when Clint turned to Ronin, is a vigilante,
and all that's kinda coming back to haunt him
in a way, and he has to own up to it.
Just because she's not the Ronin,
doesn't mean he's not back.
It's just a rumor.
We can now deepen the story 'cause
what have we seen of Ronin? Not a lot.
I mean, there's a lot of value to it 'cause people love Ronin,
and but always saw him as this...
Slay this guy, and then the yakuza,
you don't know much.
Kate Bishop puts herself
in a situation where she puts on his Ronin suit
that she finds at the auction,
and that creates a big problem for him.
You know, in Clint's mind,
he wants to protect this girl,
he wants to make sure that suit
isn't gonna endanger her in any way.
But it does force them to be together.
Look what you did.
For me, it was an interesting way in
of just the notion that Clint
is possibly living with this insecurity of, like,
is his true self really the Ronin or is it Hawkeye?
'Cause Hawkeye is the guy they make
a musical about, and that Kate idolizes,
and is this hero that she wants to brand,
but he knows he's also the Ronin.
I'm sorry, Kate.
I'm not a role model to anyone.
Never have been.
What? Yes, you are.
You are. You came here.
You left your family at Christmas
because you thought some stranger
was gonna get hurt.
You stuck around even though I *ed up.
And now you're stuck.
Whether you like it or not,
the Tracksuits have connected us both to Ronin,
and it's pretty clear they're not just gonna drop this.
We lean into Matt Fraction's comics,
so it's much more,
kind of more grounded stunt action
and even the villains.
Like the Tracksuit Mafia,
these very dangerous buffoons.
Wakey-wakey, bro.
They are fun. They're fun characters,
but there also needs to be
a level of danger to them,
an unpredictability, which I think is
where Fra Fee's character comes in, Kazi.
There is a real quiet intensity to Kazi
that I've been figuring out whilst
I'm here and exploring his journey.
I have done a lot of theater
and I love doing theater.
But, you know, telling the truth,
no matter how big or small it is,
it's all the same thing.
So, whenever you know and you trust
that your camera operator is here,
then you have license to just be really,
really small, and that's a real thrill.
With Fra, his intensity, and his quiet intensity,
but you can feel it.
There's a resonance in his performance,
which helps us because the less he does,
the more we do, the more powerful he is.
Maybe I haven't been clear. I prefer not to kill you,
but I'm warming up to the idea.
He's desperately wanted to work his way up the ranks,
but been unable to do so because of Maya's position.
You are.
The character we're most excited
about introducing and developing is Echo,
you know, is Maya, and she's
an amazing character to have set up,
and with the new actress, like Alaqua is,
and to see her kind of finding her feet,
I mean, that's been such a gift for us.
We were nervous about casting somebody
who hasn't been in front of the cameras before
but Alaqua really showed through her audition tapes
how much she wanted to work for this role.
I remember a friend of mine sent me the link
for a casting call for a Native deaf person.
And I said no.
And then two other friends of mine sent it to me.
And so I decided to go ahead and apply.
And they emailed me back when I enquired.
And they kept emailing me.
And I'm like, "Wow, this is getting serious."
And so, then they actually...
I was cast three months later and I'm just in this process.
So I didn't ever dream of becoming an actor,
but this is an amazing opportunity.
You and I, we're the same.
We're weapons.
She's amazing. It's a different experience
working with someone who's deaf,
'cause it's a lot of different things that
have to go on for her to understand
and never acting before,
is a little tricky, you know?
I think she knocks it out of the park.
It's a physical role.
Well, my fighting style,
mostly I do a lot of, like, elbowing.
I do elbow strikes and hits.
I was planning on punching,
but they wanted to protect my hands,
so they switched it to elbow work,
because I sign to communicate,
and they wanted to
make sure that was taken care of.
But my fighting style was more of an MMA style and karate,
kind of some badass moves. But mostly
my stunt double does a lot of that
because she does a lot of the kicks and I can't...
There's certain angles that I can't move
my prosthetic leg, so,
my stunt double did an amazing job with that.
She's a natural.
I think she's gonna do well.
I love the turn of her character.
What are you talking about?
At the beginning of the process,
I started learning sign language,
initially just to help me communicate with Alaqua on set.
The good thing is that we did have time to rehearse.
That's not a normal thing in any film set.
But the way that the scheduling worked out,
I had quite a lot of time to rehearse the signing, thankfully.
Otherwise that would have been nerve-racking.
I wanted to talk
There is something interesting about
acting without much voice.
For the little intimate moments with Maya, you know,
at most I'm just whispering.
It's so quiet. It's an amazing thing.
And all you hear is the breeze,
or, you know, the cars outside.
It's a really incredible way to perform.
I think we're reading off each other.
I'm being brought into her quiet world.
She asked what you're doing here,
Clint Barton.
- Riding a unicorn. - Learning about trust.
You know, I think what Marvel's done really so excellently,
or in the last, whatever,
12 years or so, is...
when it's serious, it's serious,
but then when you get loose,
it can make fun of itself.
They're really great at, like, poking fun
at themselves. Meaning Marvel,
there's characters
who go into eye of the storm,
hit it and talk about the pink elephant
in the room. Like, "Dude, bro, love it."
Like Tracksuit's a great example.
Guys, come on! Drop down!
Come on, bro! Get at 'em! Put 'em out!
You're like fried chicken, bro! Get up!
We would see the comic book,
the Tracksuit Mafia and it's, like,
"bro" this and "bro" that, and we were
talking, "Man, we need to up our 'bros.'
"We have not been saying enough 'bros.'"
So, we've been broing it out,
and it's honestly an honor to take on
some villains people have been
hoping to see in the Marvel Universe.
- We're having far too much fun posing. - Yeah.
I had big expectations when I got
the first text from costumes that,
"Send your sizes, 'cause we are having
a very exceptional costume for you."
You know, speaking about Marvel,
you think that,
"Oh, my God, we'll play the heroes,
you know, like superheroes."
- Form-fitted. Muscular fit. - Feels awesome.
But it was a joke from the costume guy.
Because he had to do this kind of special
costume thousands of thousands of times.
But I gotta tell you for me, for instance,
we're all wearing the tracksuits,
I think it's great. But I gotta show you
my alligator shoes. Look at these...
- Are you kidding me? - That means he's the boss.
That's the boss!
There was discussion of,
"Is it gonna look silly if they all wear the same tracksuit?
"Where do they get them?"
So we did variations
where they were all in different things.
They were just in regular street clothes,
or in different kinds of tracksuits,
different colors,
different sportswear elements.
And decided in the end, that didn't
make them feel like a collective,
and we really wanted them
to feel like a gang.
So we thought that the easiest way
to outfit the number and the quantity
that we needed with stunts and everything
was to build them from scratch.
Bros.
At times they are scary,
and they are a threat to our heroes,
and I think a part of that is shown
in the KB Toys scene where
both Clint and Kate are captured.
Maya Shimoguchi in the art department is
amazing at capturing and putting
everything into reality for us
to really help elevate the series.
Nice place you got here.
It's not creepy at all.
The level of detail,
the level of quirk/realism,
so there's like this creativity
that isn't quite reality, but then
there's nothing you don't believe
about any of her sets.
Even in, like, KB Toys,
where there's this small office upstairs.
I went in there one day and I just sat down at the desk
and I started looking at the papers on the desk,
and each one of them had been individually handwritten
with information that related
to what the gang was doing.
It was, like, the level that she has gone to is unbelievable,
and what it means is that it makes it real for the actors.
Heidi Moneymaker,
the stunt coordinator,
did a really amazing
stunt vis of the whole fight.
We would do sort of preliminary designs,
and then show her the models or the drawings.
And sometimes she would ask, like,
"Can we change this or that?"
I mean, I found it really fun, actually,
to think about the fighting,
'cause when designing the sets and we're thinking about it,
we don't really know what the fighting is actually gonna be,
you're just tryin' to create opportunities
for people to move through the space
or places where some things could happen
and what they would come up with was
always surprising and fun.
This actually was a bit of a challenge
just in the sense that
we had so many characters and I wanted
them to have their own flair and style.
Starting with Hawkeye,
he has a somewhat established style,
but because he's coming into
this show as a retired superhero,
living with his family, has hearing loss,
is wearing a hearing aid, his back hurts.
He's kind of the John Wick of
the Marvel series, minus all the murder.
I was doing fine.
Clint's back to being Clint,
and out of the Ronin life,
and kind of healing from the effects of,
you know, the Blip, and then coming back,
and the families are back, and wanted to
be back on track with his moral code
and what he needs to do,
and that becomes very defensive.
Everything's non-lethal
and you don't wanna hurt anybody.
A plunger arrow? What is the trick?
That it's completely useless?
We haven't really worked in the action genre before,
and then to see how capable he is physically...
We did the bridge scene, was one of the first action sequences,
and to watch that man sprint,
things that you don't think about,
that kind of...
The muscle memory and the technique involved in,
you know, left-handed arrow and then grabbing another...
I'm doing it wrong. But just
everything's like so on point with him.
And then just picking up
fight choreography on the spot with Heidi.
This is when you realize that
he's a level up. He's got all the tools.
I remember talking to my creative team.
I'm like, "I don't know if I wanna be in tights when I'm 50.
"I don't think anybody wants to see me in tights when I'm 50."
You know what? it's all right,
it's doing okay. I'm happy about it.
Just as we were super impressed by, like,
you realize how many Avengers movies
and how much action Jeremy's done.
Hailee came into this, and I know
she's done Bumblebee before,
she's done a little bit of action,
but physically she's incredible.
Before I came out to shoot,
I was training in LA on
the stunt side of things with my dad,
who's a personal trainer.
The best in the game,
if I do say so myself.
And we spent months in all sorts of
different styles of fighting,
hand-to-hand combat. And once I had
my first archery lesson,
we started getting into exercises and circuits of training
that would help me with my muscles. Let me tell you,
you are sore in places you never knew
you could be sore the next day.
"Eenie, meenie, miny..." and then...
- Down the line. - "Moe," and then breathe?
We had her doing things that you would
buy that a trained female could do.
So there's no big swinging punches
and things a guy would do with a guy.
They're very feminine, but still strong.
We have her doing a little Judo, but mostly Aikido.
Also using her brain and using found objects and being able to
think and be really quick-witted.
She evolves through the series.
She's sort of thrown into the deep end
and for the first time faces these guys,
you know, with guns and that really wanna hurt her.
She's probably only fought
in competitions and things with rules,
and so to kinda lean in and see her,
how she's just seizing objects.
We looked at a lot of Jackie Chan stuff to just
find that rhythm of spontaneity
and improvisation.
We need a car.
Can we take this one?
Man, this thing's beautiful.
The car chase is after the big fight.
I'm not smashing a '72 Challenger.
Come on.
Tracksuits are chasing us down,
and we're severely outnumbered.
And I was roaming through the streets of "New York."
Atlanta for New York.
They had this rig that they put the car on
where a stunt driver can get on top
and drive us through the streets.
It's an amazing thing.
Got incoming. Come on.
Basically a drivable platform that we can
put the picture car on, put the actors in,
and get them really in the middle
of the action safely,
and duplicate all the physics
you would see in a car chase.
- How many? - Four.
The actors could do their part,
their acting.
I do my part, I'm driving.
And we can run 'em through traffic,
we can slide it, spin it,
do all these wild stunty things
and it feels real, because it is.
We wanted to do that amazing 360 shot of the car coming around.
The idea there was to do it in a continuous motion
having our actors in the car
and be able to spin them around.
And make it feel like they're moving
and the background's moving
without it being a visual effects background.
Hawkeye's got a new ride.
- How fast you been goin'? - What's that?
How fast you been goin' in there?
I don't know, like,
the last three takes...
Hundred.
That's... I don't know,
I'd say probably maybe 50.
Fifty by the time we hit the 180.
The last three takes for sure,
we were cruising.
It's like this is what's
gonna be the Hawkeye ride at Disneyland.
It's like, "No way." It really feels
like you're a part of, and in it.
And both of us, Hailee and I, we're like,
our jaws were on the floor
'cause you never get to experience that.
We're used to driving 25 miles an hour
and just pretending to drive fast,
or whatever it might be.
But we were living in it like
it was a roller coaster ride or something.
We're going...
We're hauling * down this thing.
"Let's do another take."
How was it?
That was the funnest thing I've done.
in a long time.
Forehand!
Big jump!
When we were in the writers' room
and we were talking about
how do we integrate our heroes into
a world with supporting characters
that really can help elevate them
and bring them the help that they need?
And much like the ex-cons
are to Scott Lang in the Ant-Man world,
we wanted to have a group that can bring
a fun tone to the series.
There this whole crew of
live-action role players called LARPers.
It's like cosplay and that stuff.
They're very into this world,
and they make their costumes.
Take my chances.
We're filming here in Atlanta, but it's
supposed to be Central Park in New York.
What we're setting up here is the start
of Clint's sort of LARPing journey.
I'm a Viking. I'm really a Viking.
Basically, I got the suit.
He thinks I stole it, but I found it.
And we all know finders-keepers is the rule.
Let me kill you.
What?
It's make-believe anyway. Just let me
kill you in single person combat
and then I'll give you the suit.
No.
Come on, man. You're a hero in real life.
This is as close as I'll ever get to be to being one.
We set up this duel
and everybody's circling around them
as they do this big, fun mock-LARP battle,
and somebody wins,
and somebody gets the suit.
Proceed!
You * your stomach in and your posture gets right.
I don't know what's in the back of
this thing but I feel two inches taller.
You kind of pose different, I've been
putting a lot of hands on hips,
you know, just like stoic brooding poses and stuff.
It's a suit from the Marvel universe,
it's got a lot of history,
it's got a lot of stuff going on
with the suit in this series.
Also it's usually a pretty serious suit.
If somebody's got this suit on,
it's usually not good for the bad guy.
So, to have it and do something fun
and silly with the LARPers is awesome.
My view is tremendous, by the way.
We, on several occasions today,
have said, "Can't believe they pay us."
Like, it is the silliest I think
I've ever been in a good 20 years,
and I'm not that old.
Pardon me, right behind you. Jesus!
Pizza Dog is a must
for the series because
Pizza Dog is a very, very big part of
the Clint and Kate Bishop world
in the Matt Fraction run.
We've never worked with, at least
I've never worked with an animal before.
But we wanted to make sure that Pizza Dog
was gonna come off the right way.
Hey, bud. Look, it's you. It's you.
This is Jolt.
She is a three-year-old Golden Retriever,
and she just loves to work.
Good girl.
Jolt is the most gorgeous,
humorous doggy,
who just wants cuddles
and love all the time,
and I've never seen a dog smile
so broadly. On cue. Just like...
We love working with animals,
though they say not do it,
but we seem to always do it.
But Pizza Dog has been an absolute joy.
Hi.
Before we started filming, Hailee gave her
a bunch of cookies and just loved on her,
and every time they meet
she's really good with her,
and she comes and she greets her.
I think they've become good friends.
In the comics,
Derek Bishop, Kate's dad
is actually the villain,
and what we found interesting was,
what if we actually, you know,
turn it the other way around and make
Eleanor Bishop the villain of the show,
and really explore
the mother and daughter relationship
that we haven't quite seen in the MCU.
Kate, it's sweet that you're worried,
but just remember I'm the mom,
it's my job to protect you.
I am not a little kid anymore.
You're not a superhero either.
It's hard work raising a successful
daughter, especially when have different
definitions of what that success means.
I have given you space to have this crisis,
but if I don't step in, you're gonna
look back in 10 or 20 years
and you'll wonder why I didn't take the wheel
when you were swerving over the road.
They're confident, they're capable,
they're strong-willed,
they're opinionated,
but they're very different.
You wanna tell me when
you got into swords, Mom?
Hon, there have been a few changes
while you were away this semester.
Ta-da! Oh.
What an unexpected surprise.
I think Jack coming into
this role and wanting to serve this role
as stepfather figure,
he's walking into an emotional minefield
with these two gals.
I think a common interest
is very fertile ground for bonding.
Bonding. That's exactly what I was thinking.
We really wanted to bring in Jack Duquesne,
who in the comics is supposed to be Swordsman,
and Swordsman in the comics is Clint Barton's mentor.
He taught Clint how to do archery
and really is also a villain at the end.
We wanted to explore that character,
bring him into the series,
but wanted a different twist to it.
My brother got me all these comic books
about The Swordsman that were
printed all these years back.
So I just kinda, you know, got into it,
see what this guy was like,
and it was sort of this swashbuckler
kind of Errol Flynn type of character.
So I tried to kind of instill that
a little bit into the character,
this sort of debonair, kind of very classy
sort of kind of guy, you know?
You know what they say...
Life is short.
You never know what you're gonna get.
What?
With Jack's character,
we wanted him to be the red herring,
we wanted people to really question
whether or not
he is acting as sort of like a buffoon,
I guess, in a way, this entire time,
or is he really faking it?
Careful, honey.
When am I not careful?
Always. You were always not careful.
I was talking to Jack.
When I got the part,
I'd taken fencing,
and we went at it for weeks.
I hired a professional fencer,
oddly enough, back in the day.
I took a couple of semesters back in college,
so I knew what I was doing. But I needed
to refresh it. It has been a long time.
What are you hiding, Jack?
Nothing.
I'm an open book. Right, darling?
Kate does this one little
smart move on him that he deflects.
And we wanted to leave his character
at the end as a mystery.
And that will actually allow a lot more
opportunities down the line
if we want to explore Swordsman in the MCU.
It's kind of like, you know,
building a brick wall.
I mean, you got to lay one brick, put some
mortar down and then another,
then it defines kind of what it is as it goes along.
And with each thing that has been layered in,
we get to use that.
We can talk about all these things that can happen that make
this Hawkeye show even exist.
And because of this Hawkeye show,
Florence comes from the Black Widow movie,
and all these things start to happen in
a weave like Kevin has always done
all in the MCU all along.
What we really wanted to bring into this series is
the connective tissue that Clint has with Yelena.
We went to Kevin, and we had asked if they can do a tag
in the Black Widow project to see if that
can be connected into the Hawkeye series,
and the tag actually has Yelena going to
Natasha's grave site,
and Julia Louis-Dreyfus' character,
Valentina, comes up next to her
to show her her next assignment.
Maybe you'd like a shot at the man
responsible for your sister's death.
Kind of a cutie. Don't you think?
When there were early discussions of
if Yelena was gonna come back,
I was thinking about where her mind was.
How does she find out? Who tells her?
How does she react? Who does she go after?
And then when we shot the tag scene,
I didn't see it coming that they'd
put me and Clint against each other,
which I thought was a cool twist.
If we did the for-real fight with
me wearing goggles, it'd be like this.
I was... I'm gonna, I'll go get you
a sandwich, I'll be right back.
There's a lot of things that
we had to work through story-wise,
'cause we don't know each other.
She thinks I killed her sister,
I'm like, "That's not true."
All these things, so we're trying to
fill in holes of truths and backstory.
She was really wonderful
to kind of help shape that.
She's such a beast. She's throwing me around.
When Florence and I had our first day together,
I just remember being so excited about
the fact that there was another female
that came in and came onto the set
and totally took ownership of her space
and her character and who she was in our story.
I know you're thinking, "What?
This is crazy.
"I'm going to have dinner with the enemy,
and she made good looking macaroni."
My relationship with Hailee is kind of like,
our little heartbeat throughout both of our stories.
I think they're both craving friendship,
especially Yelena.
And I think there's also that lovely level of
"Oh, well, if we really fought, I'd win in two seconds."
So, you know, I may as well just
have a friend in all of this.
What are we doing?
I mean, it's Christmas Eve.
Let's grab a drink, huh?
- Okay. Yeah. Sure. - Cool.
After I kill Barton.
No, that's not...
No, that's not what...
It's a very funny, soft, friendly fight.
- Out of all the fights... - Yes.
...this is, like,
a definite sisterly tussle,
which is cute because up until that point,
I think we've both been in pretty hairy situations.
They're having fun.
I'm going to do it either way.
Okay, but hear me out.
What if you, what if you don't...
We're at the Rockefeller Center.
It's pretty cool being here.
I gotta tell ya.
It's especially with no one here.
We wanted to shoot
our finale at the Rockefeller Center,
and initially we weren't quite sure
if we were gonna be even allowed to do it,
or how were we gonna accomplish such a big feat there.
But spending that time there to make sure that we got the environment
and got the tree and got the rink,
and then replicating that in Atlanta
for the rest of the work was pretty incredible.
We're not, in fact,
in New York City currently, but we were.
And it feels like we are now with everything,
from what you see behind us to the temperature.
The sets that Maya Shimoguchi,
who's our production designer,
built were amazing.
The construction team in Atlanta
put together the sets
that people were blown away by.
They copied right down to the look of the granite.
So, it was amazing between that,
and the ice was not really ice
because we determined that the ice
was gonna be too hard to maintain
and the temperature levels in Atlanta
wouldn't allow us to keep the ice frozen.
So, it's actually a knock-off substance
you could use, and wasn't slippery.
Which was nice,
we have crew walking around on it.
Getting to this point now
as we near the end of filming this thing,
although we've shot very much out of order,
ending with this part
of Kate is actually pretty special,
I think, because she has grown
and I have been able to find her
through all of those jokey,
crazy, funny, actiony bits,
and then we get down
to the most insane fun action.
Hello, sweetie!
I've always referred to this sequence
as our Rio Bravo sequence,
essentially the siege of Rockefeller Center.
So, we start out high
in the building at this serene party,
and it's very Christmassy,
and everything's mellow,
and then chaos erupts.
And ends with the tree coming down,
which for me is particularly special
'cause, yeah, I worked
at Rockefeller Center for about 12 years,
so, it's bizarre that we've recreated this whole thing.
Pretty impossible to do what we're doing
to the Rockefeller Christmas tree
for the love of Christmas, right?
But it's pretty awesome.
We're gonna do a lot of really killer
kickass fight scenes on this ice.
My gun! What happened?
That should hold them off for a bit.
- Oh, my God, you wore it! - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, my God, it looks so good, I told you.
It is the moment in the story where they become a team.
So this is the moment
where you really want them to feel like
they're connected and they're a piece.
And I think we accomplished that
with the costumes for each of them.
Bringing the design elements
like the chevron and the various shades of purple and black
into the design so that they feel like they are a collective
and a team that can work together well.
Kate.
Let's give 'em hell.
It was so funny, 'cause during our first fitting,
I must have heard "It's just a prototype" like 100 times,
because I was so overly excited, much like...
Kate is a lot of the show,
that they were like,
"You have no idea. It's not...
"This is just the bare bones
of what this is gonna be."
And I was like,
"Well, if that's what this is,
"then this thing
is gonna be pretty badass."
- Stealth. - That was great.
In keeping with sort of the utility of everything,
we wanted the costumes to feel
a little bit more like sportswear,
like something that you could move in.
You know, a lot of the superhero costumes
have a lot of bulk to them
or feel restrictive in certain ways.
We really wanted this to feel
like they can move in them.
I'll never ever complain
about the comfort level of suits
compared to every other Avenger
and superhero out there,
'cause I have probably,
or we probably have some of the more
comfortable ones, considering.
The only one that might rival
the comfort level is Ruffalo's,
it's just some checkered pajamas.
And that Missy, boy, she just
outdid herself with the suit, right?
- The elasticity in this fabric is... - Okay, you can stop.
That was a difficult sequence to manage
because you had so much story
converging in this one place.
Letting each of them have their moment
so you're invested.
You understood what was going on,
but could keep moving between them.
That was the biggest challenge of all.
Your first arrow is gonna go to Kate.
- This is Kate. - Hi.
- You're gonna fire at him. One, two.
And then second one up high.
We've got a massive fight on this ice rink
with a bunch of Tracksuit Mafia
where Kate and Clint finally find
their rhythm and become a team,
which is a really great evolution.
Ready! And one! And two! And three!
And four! And five!
Ready. And fire!
Kate goes away to kinda find her mom,
and Clint's back on the ice,
getting shot at by Kazi
and stuff's going crazy,
and then before you know it,
Yelena's tackling him back onto the ice.
Ribs.
For me, this is one of the most
emotional and epic scenes.
Nobody killed her. She made a choice.
Stop lying!
As these pieces of the story unfold,
she's becoming less technical
and more brutal.
So by the end of this,
she's got one of her batons
and she's literally beating the crap
out of him and he's letting her,
because he feels as bad as she does.
So, obviously, it being a finale,
we see all of these stories kind of come to a head,
and Clint's been on this redemption journey,
and Maya, you know,
is sort of a palpable fallout
of his actions as the Ronin, and so,
we watch them both have their climactic sort of showdowns.
Him with Yelena, her with Kazi.
Seeing the comic page come to life on the screen
is what has excited me for the past 20 years.
But really, as we get into the second decade of Marvel Studios,
what is equally exciting to me
is the enthusiasm and the joy that the actors themselves
bring to evolving and portraying
these characters year after year.
We were all on a call,
me and Kevin and Trinh,
and we were talking
about the Tracksuit Mafia
and the criminal organization
behind this story,
and we needed a really big threat,
like something that,
you know, would make Eleanor Bishop
shake in her boots and Hawkeye,
you know, get a little bit afraid.
It had to be someone powerful.
When you talk about
organized crime in the Marvel universe
and you talk about the seedy underbelly of New York City,
there is one primary character that comes to mind.
Kevin threw out the idea that,
"What if this could be Kingpin?"
And I think all of our jaws just
kind of dropped in our Zoom meetings,
and we're kinda like,
"Wait, you're joking, right?
"This can't be serious. Are you serious?
"This is... You're...
"You really think that there's a chance
"that we can actually get Vincent D'Onofrio,
"who plays Kingpin in Daredevil,
"in the series as a cameo for a couple of scenes?
"Like, he is our big boss?"
And Kevin made a call to Vincent.
He said, "I want to bring you into the MCU."
I'm not gonna say no to that.
That's pretty awesome.
The people
need to be reminded
that the city belongs to me.
I really loved playing this character.
I liked creating him, you know,
from the art of guys like David Mack.
We had talked about doing
a heavier set version of Kingpin.
But ultimately, we wanted to go in
a different direction for this character.
To put him in that Hawaiian shirt
was kind of like a dream come true.
We had talks,
and she gets really in depth about things.
I love that 'cause I was able to explain
how I feel about the character
and what motivates the character.
And Fisk is really driven by emotion.
You know, he's like a child
and a monster both at the same time.
So it got very intense yesterday,
and it got a little bit intense today, too.
Maya.
You and I...
we're family.
Family.
Sometimes family doesn't see...
eye to eye...
This whole experience has been really crazy.
I mean, there are just a lot of moving parts
and just an amazing,
amazing large team of people.
And to have Jeremy as an ally through all of it
has just been really special.
Make sure you get that curve.
- You got it, right? - Okay.
I keep saying there's a lot going on,
and in the best way,
but it's nice to look at the person that's next to you,
that you're in this scene with,
and have an understanding
and confidence that you'll get through it together.
Yeah, he's my partner.
No, we're not partners.
- Well, we're friends-slash-partners. - That's kind of a stretch.
It's bittersweet for sure as we come to this end.
The mentor-mentee relationship
is what we were really striving to showcase in the series.
But it's not really one-sided between Clint and Kate.
What's also really interesting is that
he's learning so much from Kate as well,
too, throughout the series.
And in the end, you know,
having learned a lot from each other,
they both become partners,
and, you know, he eventually
hands the mantle over to her.
What do you think of "Lady Hawk"?
Yeah, that's terrible.
I mean, it's hard to quantify
what it's meant for me as in my career.
It certainly made me famous.
When a fourth-grader and third-grader
knows your first and last name,
that's a strange thing, right?
It just, it becomes like a very global thing.
I know it's affected that way.
But when I think of the MCU
and my experiences playing this character
and every film that
I was fortunate enough to be able to do,
it becomes much more of a personal journey.
Look at the wonderful relationships I've got to forge
you know, 'cause we're also...
When you do a film,
you're usually done and you move on.
And this is not even just a trilogy.
This is a lot of films, right?
So, you get to have that sort of family element
and continue on through so many years.
And when you have a career shared together,
that's very, very far
and few between, or never happens.
And I feel very blessed for that,
and that's what I think about when I think about my time in the MCU.
See? Tree covers the parts
that won't... come off. Damn it!
Am I dead yet?
Ow.
Don't go without me!
Have you ever eaten reindeer?
I cannot say I've had the pleasure.
No, it is not a pleasure.
Put it down!
Is my soul dead yet?
How about now?
No?