“She-Hulk: Attorney At Law” stars Tatiana Maslany (Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk) and Jon Bass (Todd Phelps / Hulk Todd), as well as head writer Jessica Gao and director Kat Coiro discuss Season One and its amazing finale in this interview with CinemaBlend's Sean O'Connell.
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00:00Yeah, who owns the story and who feels seen by the story
00:05and how do you claim your story?
00:06One of these guys is gonna slip up
00:08and they're gonna give us enough information
00:09so that we can track them down
00:10and then we will find them and we will destroy them
00:13by any and all means.
00:15Legally.
00:16I said by any and all means.
00:24It was really fun after seeing the totality of the season
00:27to go back and rewatch the pilot
00:28and just see how different you portrayed Jen
00:31in those early stages.
00:32And I'm curious how different you think,
00:34what did the biggest difference is
00:35from when you first started playing her
00:36to where she ended up?
00:37Yeah, that's a great, great question.
00:40I mean, I feel like innately your body
00:43starts to respond as an actor
00:45to having played a character for an amount of time,
00:49there's a settling in,
00:50there's a sense of like knowing who you are.
00:53And I think for this character,
00:54that actually really is true of who she is as well.
00:58She's stepping into this world kind of blindly
01:02and with a lot of resistance and a lot of like,
01:05I don't know how I fit into this,
01:07I don't know if I fit into this.
01:09And so to me, it felt like a natural thing
01:12to sort of just embrace where I was at
01:14in terms of as an actor stepping into the Marvel world.
01:18Yeah, again, the meta-ness of the show,
01:20but that's where Jen was at
01:22and I think she does come to a sense of wholeness
01:28or a sense of integrating the sides of herself,
01:31you know, that she's been sort of thinking of
01:34as two separate things that can't marry
01:36and that can't be together.
01:38Well, this entire first season is her origin story.
01:41You know, the pilot, we got to see her physical origin,
01:44but the seasonal arc of this entire first season
01:48is really like her emotional and mental origin
01:51of accepting She-Hulk into her life,
01:55figuring out how to be both and the balance
01:58and what the relationship between Jen
02:00and She-Hulk is going to be.
02:01That really is the actual story that we're telling.
02:04And then to that end,
02:05because the finale is titled,
02:07"'Whose Show Is This?'",
02:09it's like the answer, the obvious answer is Jen,
02:11but like the show is so meta and clever
02:14that I'm wondering if there's a trickier
02:16sort of answer to that.
02:19Yes, I mean, it is tricky
02:21because there is no straightforward answer,
02:24depending on who you ask,
02:25some people might say it's Jen,
02:26but other people might say,
02:27well, I mean, if K-E-V-I-N is controlling everything,
02:32then it really is his.
02:33And I do think that it is very reflective
02:35of what it's like to make a TV show at Marvel Studios.
02:39Yeah, I mean, that's really,
02:41I think what it nods to is also just the sense of,
02:46well, there's such a response to Jen,
02:49to She-Hulk, the show coming out,
02:52that there's an ownership over the right
02:55for certain characters to exist or whatever,
02:59that certain kind of trolls have a feeling
03:03that they have an ownership over or an entitlement to.
03:06So the proposing of like, whose show is this?
03:09I do feel like this show invites people in
03:13who aren't necessarily Marvel fans
03:16or who don't necessarily have,
03:17haven't always felt like a place in that universe.
03:22It's an outsider character.
03:24Even in the comics, she's sort of like,
03:26not, you know what I mean?
03:28And to me, that's the sort of theory
03:31or the hypothesis of the show in a lot of ways
03:34is like, yeah, who owns the story
03:38and who feels seen by the story
03:41and how do you claim your story and all of that?
03:45And the answer should be all of us.
03:46All of us.
03:47It belongs to all of us, just enjoy it.
03:52Hey, is everything okay?
03:55What the hell, you guys?
03:57What kind of stupid finale is this?
04:00There is something really special about the Burbank lot
04:03and seeing She-Hulk walk around the Disney lot.
04:06It just sort of gives me goosebumps.
04:08Do you feel pretty special when you're able
04:09to sort of visit that location and walk around?
04:12Yeah, I really do.
04:15I think any lot, especially in Los Angeles,
04:20holds a certain je ne sais quoi,
04:25for lack of a better term.
04:26But that one is definitely special
04:30and walking around it,
04:32it does sort of bring a childlike quality to it
04:36because it's where you've seen
04:40so many things come from there
04:41and then being an adult, still walking onto that lot,
04:45you're just sort of like, you get giddy.
04:47It's amazing.
04:49People are gonna be pausing the writer's room sequence
04:52and scouring the walls.
04:53To that end, do you have to be really careful
04:55about what you put in there?
04:57Is there stuff in there
04:58that people should be looking out for?
05:00Well, the note cards definitely are realistic
05:04as to the episode breakdown.
05:06And there are some real writers in the writer's room.
05:12They don't have lines,
05:13but we do cut to a couple of them directly.
05:18You know, there's so many Easter eggs.
05:20I mean, the whole thing is an Easter egg
05:21because we actually shot it at the Disney lot.
05:23And so as soon as she busts through that menu,
05:26we are living in an Easter egg.
05:29And that was something that was really important to me.
05:32You know, I was like, to make this concept work,
05:34when she breaks out of the menu,
05:36she has to be in reality.
05:37And that reality should be the real Disney lot.
05:40And so everything you see there is pretty real.
05:42You and Charlie obviously have such incredible chemistry.
05:44Are you prepared for the tidal wave of memes
05:48that will be coming from Jen and Matt shipping, essentially?
05:52Yeah, I mean, I love it.
05:54You know, you could feel it on the day
05:56that these two characters somehow work together.
06:00Like they somehow made sense.
06:01They have like, I don't know,
06:03they like irritate each other
06:04and also are attracted to each other
06:07in a classic sort of rom-com way.
06:10Yeah.
06:11But also like, to see Charlie bring
06:13the kind of level of play and goofiness
06:16that he did to that character,
06:18it's just so, like, again,
06:20it's just like the best thing to experience.
06:22And of course you fall in love with him.
06:24I love his hero landing in the finale.
06:26And then you're just like, you missed it all.
06:28It's over.
06:29Yeah, like into a grass field
06:31where everyone's sort of like wrapping up.
06:34I mean, it was immediate.
06:35It was immediate.
06:36And like, you know, as someone who comes from rom-coms,
06:39it's like, you can't direct chemistry.
06:41So you have to rely on your actors bringing it.
06:44And it's what makes or breaks, you know,
06:47movies, episodes that are driven by chemistry.
06:50The little secret is that I think those actors
06:52have good chemistry with everybody.
06:55Oh.
06:55Like Tatiana, you know, Tatiana
06:57and Mark had amazing chemistry, you know.
07:00It's because they're just such great actors.
07:02So earlier in this season,
07:04we got to see Emil Blonsky, of all people, get redeemed.
07:10And show a nicer side of himself.
07:11Is Todd redeemable?
07:13Can he ever reform his ways?
07:16He could.
07:17I don't think he's going to.
07:18No?
07:19No.
07:20I think, hopefully he gets worse.
07:23Really?
07:24Oh, that's the path you'd like to see him go down?
07:26I think villains should always get more villainy, you know.
07:31I think that's sort of the vibe that Pete...
07:35No one liked Todd.
07:37I think people are...
07:40People are asking for the kind edit for Todd.
07:45So let's lean into it, you know.
07:49Fair enough, man.
07:50That's the way to go.
07:52Were you happy that you finally got a chance
07:54to Hulk out as part of the program?
07:56Happy is an understatement.
07:58Okay.
08:01It's a mind-melting moment to see yourself Hulk out
08:04on an actual, you know, MCU show.
08:09It's the greatest.
08:12And now, when Jennifer Walters grows angry or outraged,
08:16a startling metamorphosis occurs.
08:21I want to ask specifically how time-consuming it was
08:24to recreate the opening of the Bill Bixby series.
08:29Well, in some ways, it was simpler than the rest
08:32of the show because there was a lot of practical elements.
08:36You know, for example, we just painted a bodybuilder green,
08:39as opposed to going through all the rigmarole
08:42of creating our She-Hulk, which was very time-consuming.
08:45So it was...
08:46It looked old-fashioned,
08:47and it actually was kind of old-fashioned to shoot,
08:50which was fun.
08:51Yeah, there were a lot of practical elements
08:52that were used in there, right?
08:53Down to the old computers that she was typing on.
08:55Very, very funny stuff.
08:57Even though there were trolls on it,
08:59it was an old-fashioned computer.
09:02Before they kick me out,
09:03is there an actor of note who's playing Scar?
09:06All shall be revealed.
09:08The idea with this was a little nugget, a little hint.
09:11So it served its purpose.
09:14It certainly did.
09:15People are talking about his haircut.
09:16There's a lot of commentary about his haircut.
09:18Well, I'll tell you, there was a lot of comments,
09:20a lot of commentary about his haircut in the process
09:23because you spent months developing that character
09:25who you see for one second.
09:26Of course, everybody's asking
09:27when we're going to see her next.
09:28Have you heard any plans about, like,
09:30the direction of where you guys might be able to go
09:32in terms of the second season
09:33or whether Jen's going to fit into a movie?
09:36How I feel about all of this at this very moment
09:39is how my friends with kids
09:40have described having their first child,
09:42which is you have your first baby
09:43and then everybody starts asking,
09:45when are you going to have your second one?
09:46And they're all like, I literally just gave birth
09:49and I'm in the delivery room still recovering.
09:52And that's all I can think about right now.
09:54And that's how I feel.
09:55All right, fair enough.
09:56I'll let you have that time to enjoy the ride
09:59and appreciate the time with the fans
10:01and your firstborn.
10:02And I appreciate your time.
10:04Talk to you soon.