'Black Widow' actors Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh share experiences ahead of premiere

CHICAGO (WLS) -- "Black Widow" finally hits the big screen in many Chicago theaters Thursday and streams on Disney Plus starting Friday.

Scarlett Johansson, who plays Natasha in "Black Widow," talked about her experience being part of the Marvel Universe.

"It's a group of people that I've known for a decade of time, and we're very, very close. We've been through a lot together," Johansson said.

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"When you play a role that is so well known and obviously has history to it and people know the character before you even step into it, there's an instant feeling of pressure because you don't want to let anyone down," said Florence Pugh, Yelena in "Black Widow." "To see the first reactions are lovely and that people love Yelena makes me so happy."

Pugh also talked about close calls during the filming.

"I started running, and as I run towards the door, my foot just slipped from underneath me. I went down, and then Scarlett went into me, but because of the angle of the camera, no one saw what happened. They just thought we disappeared, and their comment when they came back was, 'Hey, where did you guys go? Don't do that again," and we were, 'Did you not just see what happened? I fell down. Scarlett fell down," Pugh said.

The production had a female empowerment message that Johansson found to be important.

"I just felt it was really important to make a film about women lifting each other up, and supporting one another and coming out the other side better for it, and I think we accomplished that with this," Johansson said.