‘Hawkeye’ directors let Hailee Steinfeld and Florence Pugh improvise a fun moment

The fifth episode of Hawkeye showed the second meeting between Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop and Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, and it went a lot better than their first rooftop encounter. The two women settled in for an awkward chat over mac and cheese, with Yelena explaining why she wanted to kill Hawkeye while also waxing lyrical about how cool it is to be in New York City and the sights she wants to see.

The pair have obvious chemistry, and fans are already calling for a team-up show about their adventures. Now a new interview with directors Bert & Bertie reveals the scene was as fun to shoot as it was to watch. In an interview with Buzzfeed, they revealed that though there was a script for the scene in question, they were happy to let Pugh and Steinfeld improvise, which created some of the funniest moments.

As Bertie explained:

“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. 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.”

She continued:

“As an actor, you have to know you’re up for many takes, and we kept wondering how much hot sauce could Florence take? She went there for real. At one point, we were like, ‘Are you sure you’re good?’ And Florence was like, ‘I’m in. I am in it. Don’t you worry.'”

Steinfeld also seems to have a fun time working with Pugh, saying to Cosmopolitan that the pair “had a wonderful time together” and have become friends.

Memo to Marvel: If we can get an Echo spinoff series, we can definitely get a few episodes of gal pals Kate n’ Yelena seeing the sights of New York City, hitting some bars and maybe clobbering a few people for good measure. If some predictions floating around out there pan out, the pair may end up squadmates on a future Avengers team. Let’s hope that comes to pass.

Hawkeye will conclude next Wednesday on Disney Plus.