One of the biggest surprises in Black Widow was the reveal of Taskmaster’s true identity, with Marvel Studios doing an incredible job of keeping the villain under wraps. We’d been hearing all sorts of theories about potential Tony Stark connections, while O-T Fagbenle deserves credit for repeatedly trolling everyone so well, and it was a genuine shock to discover Dreykov’s daughter was played by Olga Kurylenko.
Of course, the pieces could be put together during the opening credits when her name first appears, with the presence of an established actress boasting plenty of action movie experience thanks to previous outings in Quantum of Solace, Timothy Olpyphant’s Hitman, Max Payne, The November Man, The Courier and many more something of a dead giveaway, but the levels of secrecy maintained by everyone involved in Black Widow are still commendable.
Now that the feature length Phase Four opener is out in the open for all to see and making a ton of money, Kurylenko is free to discuss her role as Antonia Dreykov in detail. In a new interview, the actress admitted that she’s love to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe again in the future.
“There’s so much you can do. She’s going to be, I think, conflicted between the bad and the good, and probably torn in all directions and try to figure out which way she wants to go. But I think because underneath she’s a vulnerable human, she could be explored in all sorts of ways. The thing is, she could be always caught up in that power and manipulated again. So that’s always a danger. It’s always a danger to keep away from being possessed and concentrate on keeping her freedom.But it doesn’t mean that she’ll succeed at it.
And there’s always bad forces that will try to capture her, I would imagine. It’s that kind of character. The character’s too valuable and too skillful to let go. Obviously, even though the main baddie is gone, there’ll be others that are going to try and do it. I would just imagine. I know nothing at all, I’m just speculating. Oh, I’d love it. It would be awesome.”
There’s definitely at least a couple of storytelling opportunities to bring Kurylenko’s Antonia back into the fold after Black Widow. The Red Room survivors are now free to make their own decisions, so they could realistically keep doing what they do best with some degree of autonomy this time. We’ve also heard talk that Taskmaster is already being lined up for future appearances in both film and television projects, and with upwards of two dozen titles currently in development, Kurylenko and her alter ego are hardly going to be short of options.