Black Widow threw fans a curveball when O-T Fagbenle‘s Mason, a character everyone believed to be Taskmaster for more than a year, wasn’t the person behind the mask. The film revealed that it was Antonia Dreykov, played by the wonderful Olga Kurylenko, who was behind the killing machine. With a secret that was constantly pried by many in the years leading up to the film’s release, it stands to reason that a curious fan myself would ask Kurylenko in lengths Marvel went through to keep the role a secret. So, I did when I had the opportunity to interview her.
It started with me being on set where no one could see me [laughs]. I’ve never gone through that so it was quite interesting. I remember walking out… there was this umbrella created that had fabric hanging all the way to the ground and I had to be underneath. It was quite fun. It started with that and most of the time, I couldn’t really walk around and I had to sit in my tent and trailer. Obviously, I wasn’t allowed to talk about it understandably. That’s what I did. Even my mother didn’t know. She only found out a few days ago. The movie was supposed to come out last year so she saw the trailer and went, “Oh Olga, there’s this super cool movie coming out. I wanna see it! Can we go together?” I went, “What movie?” She goes, “Black Widow.”
Because the character stays masked for the majority of the film, I also wondered just how much of the Taskmaster we see in the film is Kurylenko in the costume. Her answer wasn’t surprising as the role was more physical and stunt-oriented than it was character-driven. However, it was nice to know that she was in the suit for the film’s last stretch.
The fighting and the scenes that came after my reveal, I got to do. Obviously, it’s such a complex character with so many abilities so I had to be doubled. There was more than one person involved because the character can so many different things from all specialties. It’s great because the character can do anything.
