Hawkeye director on Florence Pugh's Yelena in the series: "We know their past"

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Exclusive: Rhys Thomas talks Yelena Belova's involvement in the Hawkeye series

Florence Pugh as Yelena in Black Widow
(Image credit: Disney/Marvel)

Ever since the Black Widow post-credits scene, it's seemed that Hawkeye and Yelena Belova are heading on a collision course.

The moment saw Florence Pugh's former-Widow at the graveside of Natasha Romanoff, who sacrificed herself in Avengers: Endgame for the Soul Stone – rather than let Jeremy Renner's Clint Barton be the one to go over the edge. In Black Widow, Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Val told Yelena that Hawkeye was responsible for Natasha's death, and put the archer firmly in Yelena's crosshairs.

GamesRadar+ sat down with Hawkeye director Rhys Thomas, and asked whether we'll be seeing the Avenger and assassin at each other's throats in the series.  

"I can't speak to that," he tells us. "But yes, we know their past, and obviously what happened in Endgame. We know in these first two episodes that Clint's dealing with the fallout of that. But in terms of how they meet, I can't – I'll just pretend I don't know. Imagine it's a happy meeting, where they talk over coffee and work things out."

"It's definitely a standalone thing in that we have this Christmas setting, and this very fixed timeframe story," he reveals. "But it being the MCU, of course, it all connects in some way as well. And we've got new characters, and this was teed up at the end of Black Widow as well. And so everything is always a nice entry point. But I think for the most part, the story is its own little world."

Molly Edwards
Molly Edwards
Deputy Entertainment Editor

I'm the Deputy Entertainment Editor here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.