17 “Black Widow” Cast Facts For Anyone Who Loves Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, And The Rest Of The Actors

Florence and Scarlett bonded so much that after a week on set, they began sticking their fingers in each other's sweaty armpits.

1. Scarlett Johansson said she was anxious and intimidated to meet Florence Pugh for the first time. Meanwhile, Florence was just as nervous to meet Scarlett.

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Florence said she'd just gotten off a plane a few hours before and didn't have time to shower before meeting Scarlett, and she said she was probably "smelly."

2. David Harbour ended up losing about 60 pounds during the shoot just so he could film the Red Guardian's flashback scenes.

Jay Maidment / Marvel

He told the New York Times, "I had grown the beard and the hair for Stranger Things, and I was like, 'Let’s use the weight.' So I started eating even more. I got up to 280 pounds, and I loved it. I said to the first AD [assistant director], 'Listen, we have to shoot the flashback stuff at the end so that by the time we shoot the flashback, I’ll lose the weight and I’ll be thin.' And he was like, 'You’ll never be thin.' I was like, 'Yes I will, man.' And I lost like 60 pounds through the shooting. The first stuff we shot was at the prison, so that belly that’s coming at you, that’s all real belly. And then as we shot, I started to lose weight."

3. While Rachel Weisz was filming in London, her husband, Daniel Craig, was actually filming No Time to Die in the same studio.

Jay Maidment / Marvel

They were both filming at Pinewood Studios.

4. Scarlett found out about Black Widow's death while she was on the phone with Kevin Feige one day. She joked about reacting pretty heartbroken but calm at first, but then she cried in the shower later.

Courtesy Marvel

5. Scarlett had a little car she'd ride around the set in, and she decorated it with a "big furry spider," aka a black widow.

@shimmybluejeans / Via instagram.com

6. David shared that while on set, he, Scarlett, and Florence fell into a "family dynamic" pretty quickly.

@dkharbour / Via instagram.com

He said, "I do think when we started shooting, we sort of fell into our role, and that family dynamic of us really started to emerge naturally — Scarlett being the oldest daughter, [and] Florence being the younger baby."

7. The suit with the backpack that Black Widow wears in the film was actually so hard to move in that Scarlett had to take it off just so she could sit, talk, and lift her arms.

Marvel Studios / Courtesy Marvel Studios

8. David's Red Guardian costume was just as uncomfortable because his head was "crushed inside" the helmet.

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David joked, "It didn't smell very good at the end of the day." 

9. David was actually the one who decided "American Pie" should be Yelena's comfort song.

@everanderson / Via instagram.com

He told Insider, "I felt there's gotta be something a little more profound, and I said, 'Wouldn't it be interesting if, back in America, when she was little and was terrified, having been taken from her family, the Red Guardian would put her in the car and drive around and play 'American Pie'? So from then on, she tells Daddy to put in the tape.'"

10. Florence and Scarlett had bonded so much that after a week of knowing each other, they'd "put [their] fingers in each other's armpits when they were sweaty," just to make each other laugh.

@florencepugh / Via instagram.com

11. During the months she was filming, Florence took care of a little cactus named Barry and showed the entire journey on her Instagram stories.

Florence Pugh / Via youtube.com

She sang to it, asked for gardening tips, and even had to perform surgery on it.

12. Scarlett and Florence were strapped to the motorbike for about five hours during a day of filming, and when they weren't shooting, Scarlett's daughter would feed Florence ice cream.

Jay Maidment / Marvel

13. Florence was actually the biggest trickster on the Black Widow set: She'd stick her finger inside David's nose in between takes.

BuzzFeed / youtube.com

She joked, "I did get into a really nice habit of putting my finger up David's nose in really inconvenient times. And he really liked it."

14. While perfecting her Russian accent for the movie, Rachel couldn't get Gru's voice from Despicable Me out of her head.

Jay Maidment / Marvel

She told BBC, "I think a lot of people really have Steve Carell's voice as Gru in one's head, and it's so brilliant. It's just maybe a tad too funny ... I think David Harbour and myself are a little colorful with it, but it was hard to get Gru out of my head."

15. Coincidentally, Black Widow and Stranger Things Season 4 will be released in close proximity, and both feature David in a Russian prison role. To make sure the two projects didn't look the same, David would send pictures of the Black Widow set to the Duffer brothers.

Marvel, Netflix

He told Decider, "As I was shooting [Black Widow], I was telling the Duffer brothers, like, 'Man, I’m sorry, but I am, like, in a Russian prison with a long beard and long hair, and [Black Widow is] gonna come out probably around the same time [as Stranger Things]. They’re two big genre things, man. I cannot look the same in both.' And so the Duffers and I came up with this idea: In some gulags, they shave your head. It’s this humiliating thing they would do to men. I was like, 'Oh, yeah, let’s do this whole shaved head thing,' and I slimmed down a tremendous amount. Then I kept taking pictures of the [Black Widow] set with my iPhone, which you’re not supposed to do on Marvel movies. They always confiscate your phone, but I would go around, take a picture, and be like, 'Guys, look: There’s orange here, so don’t do orange.' And they’d be like, 'Okay.' So there’s lots of production design elements and things to make them as different as possible. It was a horrible coincidence that the internet has made me pay for a year now, and hopefully it will all be over once they both come out."

16. The scene with Alexei the pig almost got cut from the movie, but Rachel was adamant about wanting to do it because she loved working with the pigs so much.

Marvel

She told BBC, "There was talk about leaving the pigs outside and not having the pig Alexei come into the scene. And I said very honestly to [director] Cate [Shortland], 'One of the reasons I did this movie was to do that scene with Alexei the pig. Please, can we keep it?' And she said, 'Yeah, I agree.'"

17. Finally, David is down to play Red Guardian again and has a few ideas about how his story would pan out: 1) The Red Guardian is back in his prime, or 2) the Red Guardian wants vengeance for Black Widow's death.

Jay Maidment / Marvel

"I have two ideas. One is seeing Red Guardian back in his prime. That's interesting to me. But the other is going off this story, having this experience with Natasha and having this beautiful end when he takes her hand and says, 'I can't even speak to you because I would mess it up.' When he finds out that she was on that cliff with Hawkeye, and maybe the version of the story he hears is that Hawkeye pushed her off or something, it's a moment when Red Guardian turns back to the guy he was. He now wants vengeance for her. That, I feel, would play well."