Watch out Supa-Fans! Marvel Studios is back with a brand-new streaming series set to feature Tatiana Maslany as Bruce Banner’s cousin Jennifer Walters AKA She-Hulk. The eighth streaming series directly connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is a hilarious legal comedy which depicts the unexpected legal implications of the MCU’s superhuman laden world. Written by Rick and Morty’s Jessica Gao, the show is a side-splitting exploration of a never-before-seen side of the Marvel franchise filled to bursting with special cameos and Marvel deep-cuts.
Ahead of the series premiere on Disney+, we were lucky enough to catch up with the series star Ginger Gonzaga who plays Jennifer Walter’s paralegal and irreverent best-friend Nikki. “It was definitely a blast to make,” Gonzaga says of her time on the series. “These shows are a dream for an actor, you know. I’ve been in so many slice-of-life dramadies and not shows that have magical elements and portals that you can fly through and weird characters with superpowers. So, you know, it’s amazing creatively and it’s amazing technically and it’s just… it’s super, super fun.”
L-R: Mark Ruffalo as Smart Hulk/Bruce Banner and Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer “Jen” Walters/She-Hulk in Marvel Studios’ ‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’, exclusively on Disney+
Joining the multiple award-winning Maslany, who wowed audiences by playing multiple roles in the BBC America sci-fi series Orphan Black, are a range of familiar faces from the MCU, including the return of Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner. Other guest stars include Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky AKA the Abomination, Benedict Wong as Doctor Strange’s Wong, and the highly anticipated return of Charlie Cox to the role of Matt Murdock AKA Daredevil.
“Our cast is like spoiled with talent,” Gongaza says. “Like we have such an insanely talented, multi-talented cast. Yeah, it was just really, really, really fun to be around everyone and to make this cool, silly thing.”
With the wealth of talent available to them, head writer Gao and lead director Kat Coiro were able to draw upon the improvisational skills of their actors to lend the show a fun sense of spontaneity unlike anything ever done in the MCU.
“We were allowed to improvise a lot,” Gongaza explains. “Jessica Gao is such a strong comedy writer and I think anyone who comes from comedy knows that there will be a lot of improv.
“I’ve actually worked on something that Jessica wrote on before that was extremely improvised. So, she’s very used to that world and very welcoming of it which is so fun for me as an actor because that’s how I like to work. That’s how I keep it fresh and fill in any space, you know, with different words when we need it for the pacing.”
L-R: Tatiana Maslany as She-Hulk/Jennifer “Jen” Walters, Ginger Gonzaga as Nikki Ramos, and Drew Matthews as Dennis Bukowski in Marvel Studios’ ‘She-Hulk: Attorney At Law’, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick
As fun as her work on the series was, the very nature of the high-tech production did come with its own unique set of challenges for Gonzaga. While in the series Maslany’s Jennifer Walters can transform into a seven-foot tall She-Hulk, in real life that meant Gonzaga often had to work opposite her co-star in motion capture gear.
“You know, [Tatiana] wears this funny rig where it’s like sometimes it’s connected to a helmet or a backpack,” she recalls. “And then on top of it, it’s this green, dead eyed face that I’m looking at. And then, that’s my eyeline so that I am looking up. Meanwhile, I have this dynamic, tiny, five-foot three actor who’s actually in front of me that I can’t look at. So, it’s weird, but what’s weirder is how normal it became, you know. Tatiana is very physical. And so, when she transforms into She-Hulk, she’s walking a certain way, even if she’s just in my peripheral vision. I know I’m with She-Hulk.
“I think the oddest experience that I had in this was when I finally saw the final product, and I was doing the ADR recordings to rerecord some of my lines, and I saw [She-Hulk]… for some reason for me, I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s who I was acting with.’ And I had to remind myself: No, I wasn’t acting with that CGI character, I was acting with a girl in pyjamas with a stick on her head.
“But something about how well the technology captures her and her movements and her essence… I am continually amazed at how not surprised I was once I saw. It felt like I had been acting with that the whole time.”
Set to debut on August 18, Marvel’s She-Hulk is available exclusively on Disney+
LEAD IMAGE: Ginger Gonzaga as Nikki Ramos and Tatiana Maslany as She-Hulk/Jennifer “Jen” Walters in Marvel Studios’ She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick
