Florence Pugh revealed she had to fight Marvel Studios to perform a jaw-dropping stunt for the upcoming film Thunderbolts. The actress, who plays Yelena Belova, wanted to jump off the second-tallest building in the world for a scene but faced resistance due to insurance risks. She personally emailed Marvel president Kevin Feige to push for the daring sequence, arguing it would generate major buzz for the film’s press tour .
The building in question is the Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, standing at 2,722 feet tall. Marvel initially planned to use a stunt double, but Pugh insisted on doing it herself.
“I got on all the emails. It was in the script, and then slowly as we got closer and closer to shooting, they said they don’t think it’s going to happen because it’s a crazy insurance ordeal and obviously we’re not going to throw [me] off the second tallest building in the world,” Pugh told Fandango. “I was like, what the fuck? Of course we are! We have to do that.” .
Pugh’s Persistent Campaign for the Stunt
Pugh didn’t back down. She repeatedly emailed Feige, even joking about the publicity benefits.
“I was being a sassy Karen emailing Kevin [Feige] and saying it’s going to do wonders for the press tour,” she admitted. “We have to do this! We’re going to have three women break three different Guinness World Records and we’ll do this and this. I had to keep on pushing and then they’re like, ‘Okay, if you want to fall off the second tallest building, we’ll figure it out for you.’” .
The stunt required intense mental focus. “The mental control I had to do that day was its own superpower,” Pugh said. After completing the jump, she was so exhausted that she slept for three hours .
Marvel’s Stunt Safety Concerns
Marvel’s hesitation wasn’t unfounded. High-risk stunts involving A-list actors often come with hefty insurance costs and safety protocols. Tom Cruise famously performed his own stunts, including scaling the Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, but even he has faced pushback from studios .
Pugh’s determination paid off, and the stunt will be featured in Thunderbolts, which hits theaters on May 2, 2025. The film follows a team of antiheroes, including Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), on a dangerous mission .
A24 Influence on Thunderbolts
Beyond stunts, Thunderbolts is being marketed as a departure from typical Marvel films. Pugh and director Jake Schreier have compared its tone to an A24-style indie movie mixed with superhero action.
“It ended up becoming this quite badass indie, A24-feeling assassin movie with Marvel superheroes,” Pugh told Empire. Schreier, who directed the A24-produced series Beef, added that the film carries “an emotional darkness that we brought to this that is resonant, but doesn’t come at the expense of comedy.” .
The movie’s marketing highlights its indie-film connections, listing crew members who worked on A24 projects like The Green Knight, Hereditary, and Minari .
