She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is out this week and it means that there’s a new Hulk in town. Featuring actress Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk, the show is a 9 episodes-long legal comedy that brings the comic book character to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Not only is it an origin story for Walters as she juggles between her career as a lawyer who also happens to be a 6-foot-7 green superhero, but it also brings back fan favourite characters. Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/Hulk will stick around to help his cousin, Benedict Wong’s Wong is back and so is Tim Roth’s Abomination. But the show is a lot more than its cameos. At a press conference attended by Maslany, Ginger Gonzaga, executive producer and head director Kat Coiro and showrunner Jessica Gao, the cast and crew opened up about the show’s format, working with Mark Ruffalo and more.
On breaking the fourth wall before Deadpool
Breaking the fourth wall is a major element in the show, something we’ve seen in the MCU with Deadpool. But Kat Coiro says, “I like to say that she was doing it long before Deadpool or Fleabag.” Opening up about the format that is drawn from the comic books, Jessica Gao explained, “For me, foundationally, I felt like first and foremost was the fourth wall breaking and the kind of meta humour and the self-awareness. It was the John Burn run that made me fall in love with this character. It was just so lighthearted and fun and refreshing. So that was always kind of a foundational element. And because I come from TV comedy, like, comedy was a priority. But then, what’s great about having such an incredible cast is, then it feels like you’re cheating a little bit as a writer. Because they come in and they really just imbue this, humanity and realness to these characters.”
On Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk
Mark Ruffalo has been playing Hulk for a while and Tatiana Maslany certainly took some cues from him. She said, “One thing I did witness him do was like he was lying down on the ground outside as Bruce and he got up as Hulk! Like truly, from a lying down position, he’s suddenly standing.” It looked incompletely inhuman. And I was like oh, that is like 10 years of playing this character and like physically embodying him and like being so inside of him, like you get to do cool stuff like that,” she added.
On how She-Hulk resonates with women
Jessica Gao recalled “I remember very vividly, being a little girl and seeing the cover of a She-Hulk comic amidst the sea of male comics. And just not knowing who she was or what this was, but knowing that I was moved by it. And that the idea of being large and in charge and, you know, taking control. Taking up space was something that really resonated with me. I remember, I bought that comic book. So, when this show came along, it was really the culmination of a real dream.”
Talking about relating to her character, Maslany said, “It was actually her conflict with it that I found most interesting. It was like her resistance to it – she’s built this life for herself that she does not wanna let go of, she’s worked so hard to be a lawyer and she has to constantly prove herself. So she’s in this path and then when this thing happens to her, she has to contend with a whole other perception being placed on top of her and expectations societally of how she should be and who she should be.”
She-Hulk which also stars Jameela Jamil, Josh Segarra, Jon Bass and more is currently streaming with new episodes dropping every week.