As one of the six original Avengers, Scarlett Johansson has been playing Black Widow, otherwise
known as Natasha Romanoff , for the better part of a decade.
But being one of the fittest forces in the MCU didn't come easily… at all.
Scarlett Johansson made her MCU debut back in 2010, when she first portrayed Black Widow
in Iron Man 2.
Since then, she's had to maintain a high level of fitness.
Following the release of Avengers: Endgame in April 2019, her personal trainer Eric Johnson
told The Hollywood Reporter:
"Scarlett always wants to be within three weeks out of her peak condition."
Of course, she's taken on plenty of other physically demanding roles outside of the
Marvel Universe, like her roles in Lucy and Ghost in the Shell.
As she told E! News, getting herself in fighting shape for Ghost in the Shell was no walk in
the park:
"Going to the gym, eating clean, and working a long day and then going to bed and sleeping
well and getting up and doing it the next day…"
Even though Johansson was a total stranger to the gym when she was cast as Black Widow,
it sounds like they're old friends now.
As she told The Hollywood Reporter:
"The gift of fitness has been one of the best parts about working for Marvel.
I am stronger and more capable now than I was 10 years ago."
So how did she go from being a total noob to getting totally ripped?
As her trainer Eric Johnson points out, Black Widow is no ordinary role:
"We're trying to create this crazy comic book hero in real life with [someone] who's normal."
The workout routine is truly extraordinary.
Let's see if you think you can handle it.
The actress has been training with Johnson since 2009, but working out didn't necessarily
come naturally to her.
In 2019, Johnson told The Hollywood Reporter that her first rope climb was something of
a disaster:
"On the way up, she kneed me in the face and gave me a nice bloody nose, she was celebrating
and I'm fighting back tears, gushing blood."
But she learned quick.
Johansson was reportedly way more competent by the time she filmed The Avengers, according
to Hollywood stuntwoman Heidi Moneymaker.
Incidentally, Heidi's sister Renae is also a stuntwoman.
"Yes, that is our real last name.
We were born with it."
In 2012, Heidi told Shape magazine,
"[Johansson] is one of my favorite actresses I have ever worked with.
She works very hard and picks things up really fast."
Scarlett Johansson developed a great relationship with Heidi Moneymaker right off the bat.
Strictly speaking, Moneymaker was hired to do things Johansson couldn't and wouldn't
do… but in the end, Moneymaker taught the actress that she could do a lot of the stunts
herself.
"Heidi was like my beacon of hope because she, like, lit the way and was incredible.
Heidi is so creative in her movement.
And all the movements really tell a story."
When the pair reconvened for 2012's The Avengers, they took their working relationship to the
next level and squeezed in sneaky work-out sessions between takes.
With hand-to-hand combat and weapons training on the agenda, it was still hard work.
Moneymaker told Shape:
"Scarlett is such a professional and works incredibly hard, so she learned all her fights
and performed them with perfect execution."
The words "bodybuilding" and "veganism" don't usually go hand in hand.
But more people are discovering just how beneficial the diet can be while training, including
Thor actor Chris Hemsworth.
The stacked Aussie star went vegan while training for 2012's The Avengers and so did Johansson.
Well, almost.
According to Johansson's former trainer Bobby Strom, the actress was on a, quote, "mostly
vegan" diet at the time.
In an interview with Ecorazzi, Johansson quipped:
"After lots of fighting and training and raw vegan food you can fit into a cat suit."
She ate lots of kale as she tried to get fit for the first Avengers film.
But when the shoot was done, so was the vegan diet.
She confessed to Fox News:
"Buffalo chicken wings.
I am addicted to them."
Scarlett Johansson's next appearance as Black Widow came in 2014's Captain America: The
Winter Soldier.
Starring alongside super-ripped actor Chris Evans is likely to make even the most confident
performer feel inadequate, but Johansson clearly rose to the challenge.
Talking to Elle in 2013, she revealed:
"I like lifting weights and doing exercises to work my core muscles.
To be honest, I work out like a guy!"
It's this heavy focus on weightlifting paired with her strict diet that gets Johansson where
she needs to be.
Johansson told Access Hollywood:
"It's boring 5 a.m. workouts and salad and chicken and nothing else, pretty much.
It's that old tried and true 'work-out-like-a-dude-and-eat-like-a-rabbit.'"
Johansson also followed that routine when it was time to get in shape for 2015's Avengers:
Age of Ultron:
"We picked up with the same program we'd used for Iron Man 2 and it had a proven history."
Scarlett Johansson took a rather extreme approach to training for Avengers: Infinity War and
Endgame.
In an interview with Harper's Bazaar, her trainer Eric Jok hnson revealed Johansson
would often fast for 12 hours a day.
Sometimes even longer.
"At moments we pushed beyond that to 14 to 15 hours depending on the filming schedule."
Johnson spilled even more dirt on Johansson's diet to The Hollywood Reporter, claiming Johansson
dropped carbs in the days leading up to the shoot in order to get some extra enhancement
on her cuts.
That's just the kind of ruthlessly sneaky maneuver we've come to expect from Black Widow,
isn't it?
"I adore you."
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