#Hawkeye Director Rhys Thomas Explains How SNL Prepared Him For Marvel Studios And More [Interview]

Yeah, I’ve been a fan of the MCU like everyone else. I’ve waited for the movies to come out and gone to see them. Honestly, I don’t know if it crossed my mind that I might get to do one. It was sort of a surprise. I got called in to meet with Marvel generally, and that’s where the idea was introduced to me. So, yeah, it’s thrilling, and then to suddenly find yourself trading in mythology and characters that I’ve just watched on a screen, it’s insane.

Speaking of which, the opening sequence of this series is on par with a Marvel Studio’s big screen experience in a way that I wasn’t expecting. Can you talk about the development process for something like that to make sure it fits into the MCU and also geography of that battle, because it has to fit into such a larger action sequence?

Yeah, the battle of New York is such an iconic moment, and it felt like such a great way to, I think, emotionally connect these two people. Also I think it was a great way into understanding the humanity, that Kate [Bishop] essentially was just a civilian in this moment and experienced it in this way. So it was a cool sequence from the get-go in from what it gave. But then yes, you realize like, oh my God, we’re going to recreate this and from this different perspective and this iconic moment. So you suddenly start spinning out with sort of how big is it, what’s going on, and where’s everyone when this moment happens? Again, luckily there are bigger brains than I, and actual computers, I think, that had a pretty good track on that stuff. So I didn’t have to worry too specifically about all of those details.

You also get to do a fun makeover of the battle of New York with “Rogers: The Musical.” Can you talk about bringing something like that together and making it so that it’s not even this big expensive Broadway musical. It feels pretty low rent.

Hey, that is my specialty man. No, I mean, again, that was the fun of doing that opening sequence. Maybe it’s catharsis to come back and do it from this other point of view again. To me it was just like a silly idea of a fun way to meet Clint. What is the last place that Clint Barton would want to find himself? Watching a little energetic dancer portray him in this iconic moment felt funny. The image of Jeremy’s face watching that was the initial thing that made me laugh. Then I pitched it, and then Kevin [Feige] seized on it. Suddenly, we’re on the road to making it. But yeah, the goal was to try and have fun with it. And it had to match a certain level, like it’s a Broadway show so it needed to be realistic in some ways. But yes, it needed to be absurd as well for you to enjoy it.