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Florence Pugh deserves a writing credit at this point!
An actor's job is more than just reciting words from a script. The truly talented can embellish a scene through improvisation, creating a funnier, deeper, or more authentic moment for their character.
The MCU is blessed with some of the best improvisors in Hollywood, from longtime legends like Robert Downey Jr., to newcomers like Florence Pugh.
Here are 22 iconic MCU scenes that were improvised:
Warning: spoilers ahead!
1. Zendaya improvised the scene where MJ throws bread at Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Marvel Studios / Via youtube.com
On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Andrew said, "At first, Zendaya picks up a candlestick or something to like threaten me with in that first scene where I come in. But then there was this basket of bread...That was her just going, ‘Can I just throw bread at him?’ and [director] Jon [Watts] was like, ‘Yeah, throw bread at him.'”
2. It was Andrew Garfield's idea for all three Peter Parker variants to recreate the iconic Spider-Man pointing meme.
Marvel Studios / Via youtube.com
On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, he said, "There's this moment where Jacob [Batalon] is like, 'Hey Peter?' and we all go, 'Yeah?' But in the script, it was like, that was that...But then I was like, no, this is the moment where we get to go, ‘Do you mean me?’ Jon was like, ‘That’s it. That’s it. Done.’"
3. Andrew also ad-libbed when he told the other two Peters, "I love you guys."
Marvel Studios / Via youtube.com
He told Variety, "That was just me loving [Tobey and Tom]."
4. In Doctor Strange, Benedict Wong and Benedict Cumberbatch totally improvised the scene where Strange compares Wong's mononym to Beyoncé.
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
Benedict Wong told ScreenRant, "He just threw [those lines] at me."
5. In Hawkeye, Hailee Steinfeld and Florence Pugh improvised most of the scene where Kate Bishop and Yelena Belova talk over dinner.
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
Bertie (of directing duo Bert and Bertie) told BuzzFeed, "We did a rehearsal, but every single thing was just perfect between them, and the improvisation that they brought to it was dynamite. We could just sit back at the monitors and just enjoy every single take and their chemistry."
6. In fact, Florence came up with the idea for Yelena to pour hot sauce all over their mac and cheese after learning that, while she loves hot sauce, Hailee hates it.
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
"There was obviously a script and it was planned, and we knew we wanted Kate to kind of turn and throw something at Yelena. At first, we were just looking around the set and there was one of those lucky cats from Chinatown. So, it was going to be that at one point, but then there was this hot sauce bottle, and we loved that," Bertie told BuzzFeed.
She continued, "Then, Florence was like, 'Oh, well, this hot sauce now needs to go all over the mac and cheese.' Florence is hugely into hot sauce, but Hailee not so much. So, the whole thing where Yelena basically says, 'Are you done? Can I go crazy?' That was not planned."
7. During stunt rehearsals for Black Widow, Florence was shocked to learn that none of the superhero's iconic landing poses — including Natasha Romanoff's — are actually safe for landing. When writer Eric Pearson overheard her telling Scarlett Johansson about it, he wanted to put it in the script.
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
Florence told MTV, "Now I've been so terrified of [Yelena's landing] being posey after I made such a joke about Natasha being posey."
8. David Harbour and Rachel Weisz improvised all of Alexei and Melina's flirting throughout the movie.
Marvel Studios / Via youtube.com
David told The Wrap, "I think that’s a credit to Cate Shortland, she saw the chemistry between us and she saw sort of our voracious, you know, appetite for these characters and for this world, and she just kind of let us run with it.”
9. David also came up with the idea for "American Pie" to be Yelena's comfort song.
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
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."
He continued, "So for this bedroom scene, I'm thinking, he's a failure as a father what can he do at the end of this scene? This narcissist who also has a big heart. And so he brings up the song, basically as him saying, 'I tried.'"
10. Although the original Eternals script didn't include the budding romance between Makkari and Druig, director Chloé Zhao asked Lauren Ridloff and Barry Keoghan to add it after seeing the "sparks" that flew between them the first time they improvised together.
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
Speaking with the cast at a press conference, Chloé said, "I don't know if Lauren, you remember, it was your first time meeting Barry, the two of you started to just riff... You started to improvise. And I go, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, what's happening?' Sparks everywhere."
11. In Black Panther, it was entirely Winston Duke's idea for M'Baku to lead the Jabari men in grunting at Everett Ross for speaking out of turn.
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
He told Vanity Fair that it was also his idea to research and base the way M'Baku speaks on Nigerian accents to differentiate him from T'Challa's South African-influenced way of speaking.
12. At the end of Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. improvised the line "I am Iron Man," which revealed Tony Stark's secret identity and went against 40 years of comic history.
13. In the Avengers: Infinity War scene where Spider-Man insists to Iron Man and Doctor Strange that he's "backup," Robert ad-libbed, "Adults are talking."
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
14. For the scene where Peter Parker is turning to dust, Tom Holland based the line "I don't want to go" on a technique he uses to cry on cue.
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
He told GQ, "I’ll say a phrase over and over again. So, for example, if I was in a scene and I was talking to someone and the undertone of the scene was that I love them, I would say in my head, 'I love you so much, I love you so much, I love you so much, I love you so much.'"
15. While filming Vision's Infinity War death scene, Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany were told to improvise.
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
Paul told MTV, "It was about 100 degrees and we were really, really sweaty, and the Russo brothers ran over to us and went ‘OK, so the entire beating heart of the movie is now on your shoulders’ and then they went off."
16. The original script stopped at "Who is Gamora?" but Dave Bautista ad-libbed Drax's famous line, "I’ll do you one better: Why is Gamora?"
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
Screenwriter Christopher Markus told Yahoo, "It’s like, ‘OK, you’re very good at your job.’”
17. Then, in Avengers: Endgame, Benedict Cumberbatch improvised the small but impactful moment when Doctor Strange lifts his finger to indicate to Tony Stark that he's the only one who can reverse the Snap.
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
18. In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan improvised most of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes' joint therapy scene.
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
Amy Aquino, who also appeared in the scene as Dr. Christina Raynor, told Entertainment Tonight, "They had the framework of what had to happen...but the rest of it, it was Anthony and Sebastian, who have this huge history. And they were doing it in character...but they were creating those moments within the framework of what was on the page."
19. Goofing around between takes on the set of Thor: The Dark World, Chris Hemsworth hung Mjölnir on the coat rack as a joke.
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
The move made the rest of the cast and crew laugh, so they decided to keep it in.
20. In Loki, Kang the Conqueror "was never meant to get on the desk," but the camera crew "saw [Jonathan Majors] start to move, and Autumn [Durald, the cinematographer] was like, 'Okay…' And then you saw the cameras start to move; it was almost like a dance with him."
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
Director Kate Herron told Entertainment Weekly, "That was not planned. It just blew us away because it was just so cool. That was the fun thing with him: I love the way he brought movement to the character in different ways, because I think that was really important as well."
21. During Loki's drinking scene on the train, Tom Hiddleston ad-libbed the reference to Thor.
Marvel Studios / Via Disney+
Director Kate Herron told Thrillist, "That's the thing with Tom as well, is that he's the Loki encyclopaedia. If you have an actor who's played a character for a decade and is like, ‘Oh, I'm going to throw in this great line’ — it's like, ‘Yeah, please.’”
22. And finally, while shooting the bridge fight scene in Thor: Ragnarok, Tom Hiddleston ran out of choreography, so he "just flipped the knives, and caught them by chance" — and Loki's knife flip was born.
Marvel Studios / Via giphy.com
He told Entertainment Weekly, "Basically, I think I finished my moves before Idris [Elba], and he was still rolling, and I didn't want to just be standing there like a lemon, not doing anything interesting."
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