Even the most super-heroic of superheroes still has to do normal stuff, like pay property taxes or figure out what shoes to wear with that cape. That’s something She-Hulk: Attorney at Law creator Jessica Gao ruminated on a lot.
The Disney Plus show will focus not just on the fact that she’s a superhero, but that she wants to live a normal life as well just like all the rest of us, according to USA Today.
“On a Tuesday when the universe isn’t about to end, what’s doing laundry like?” Gao told the interviewer. “You can be world famous, but you still have to pay the mortgage. You still have to clean your kitchen. You still have to call your mom.”
The truth is that attorney Jennifer Walters (played by the excellent Tatiana Maslany) didn’t really want her powers and only got them after accidentally being exposed to her cousin Bruce Banner’s blood. Banner, of course, is the original Hulk and is played by Mark Ruffalo.
This inner tension of wanting to just be a normal person but having these incredible powers is part of the engine driving the story forward. Maslany, who played multiple clones of herself in the super popular sci fi show Orphan Black, said she was excited about that aspect of the role.
“There’s something about the duality of a woman occupying two different bodies,” Maslany said. “Culturally, we’re so obsessed with women’s bodies in terms of control, projection, ownership, aesthetic, all of this stuff. Exploring that feels very prescient, and (it’s) very rife with interesting nuance.”
Gao also wanted to make sure there were stark differences between OG Hulk and Maslany’s She-Hulk.
“Her struggle is different than Bruce’s because hers is so much more internalized,” Gao said. “It really is about her wrestling with her identity and what it means to see people change how they treat her vs. how they treat She-Hulk.”
When filming the show, Maslany had to wear a motion capture suit just like Ruffalo did in the Avengers movies.
“He and I talked about how bizarre that suit is,” she said. “Nothing about you feels like a superhero so there’s also an outsider feeling, which is sort of what the Hulk’s place in [the Avengers] is.”
Another touch of realism Gao tried to add was She-Hulk’s fighting style. After all, she’s not a brawler, she’s a lawyer.
“She-Hulk is not a trained fighter; ultimately, she’s Jen in a huge body that’s able to flick somebody and they go flying through a wall. She doesn’t fight cool.”
There’s also the issue of dating, as She-Hulk was intentionally modeled as someone who was attractive and striking in everyday life.
Dating, Maslany said, “allows Jen to be a different person and to be seen differently. [Yet] at the same time, there’s a fraudulence to that, so Jen can’t ever totally enjoy it.”
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law premieres on August 17 on Disney Plus. It’ll be nine episodes long, and it’s the final series in MCU’s Phase Four.
