Florence Pugh has been impressive in pretty much any elaborate costume her onscreen roles have called for. Be it restrictive period corsetry, down-and-dirty pro wrestling togs, flowing, bucolic cult garb, or even more corsetry, the Oscar-nominated Little Women star has made it look stylishly easy, a quality about to be put to the test come July 9 with her first foray into the spandex-happy MCU as Black Widow’s other Black Widow, Russia super-spy Yelena Belova.
Calling her younger protegé the “sister figure” of Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanova in the MCU prequel movie, Pugh, indeed, looked plenty comfortable in the requisite clip she brought along to Friday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live. For one thing, her brasher Black Widow (the British Pugh called her “gobby”) is shown taking the piss out of her more no-nonsense pal, mocking Natasha’s penchant for undeniably cool but throughly impractical mid-fight action posing. Other than that, though, Pugh was contractually tight-lipped about the latest Marvel sure-to-be blockbuster, telling Kimmel only that she was really into her spy-assassin’s own fondness for ponytails and butterfly knives. Fair enough, and—unlike in yesterday’s interview with fellow Black Widow Black Widow Rachel Weisz—Kimmel didn’t inadvertently break the Marvel-Disney code of silence on some under-wraps plot details.
(Just a note that, with every other late-night show taking the week off, Kimmel’s had the inside track on ABC-Disney-Marvel corporate synergy—and thus the A.V. Club’s late-night coverage. Some diabolical plotting there.)
That aside, Pugh started off by telling Kimmel about how her quick-thinking dexterity while in restrictive clothing was also put to the test at the 2020 Oscars, thanks to her decision to bring her overly friendly parents as her plus-twos. First there was dad, who kept introducing her to all his new pals like Renée (Zellweger) and some nice bloke named Noel (Gallagher). And then there was mom, who, when not getting annoyed that her award-nominated daughter was interrupting her chat with mom’s new bestie Kate (Hudson), had to be wrangled out the door after getting floor-staggeringly wasted with none other than Snoop Dogg. Now, nobody here knows just how adept Mrs. Pugh is at holding her smoke, and, sadly, we can only guess at how potent Snoop’s weed actually is, but, as Pugh told Kimmel, the vaguely embarrassing parental hobnobbing finally came to an end when Pugh had to play mother and wheel her thoroughly stoned mom out of the swanky Madonna-hosted post-show affair. Parents today, right?