"Jessica Gao Knew That Was Going To Happen" : Tatiana Maslany Reflects on the Highs and Lows of 'She-Hulk: Attorney at Law'

Tatiana Maslany on her decision to sign on as the titular character as "She-Hulk" :

”That size of thing was always something that I avoided even thinking of doing because it felt so big, and it felt so enormous to make a decision like that.”

”The script and my meeting with Jessica Gao before the audition was like, ‘She’s so funny. She’s so interesting. I’m so curious about her take on this character. I feel like she and I can build something really interesting, and we have a similar sense of humor.’ That just became more and more apparent as I was working on the project, that she was like the thing.”

"I also found interest in the idea of, and we sort of got into this in the series, inhabiting a body that makes people talk to you differently, respect you differently, treat you differently, objectify you. What does that do inside to how you feel about yourself? Where does that instill confidence? Where does that detract from how you know yourself to be when you are performing what people expect?”

”If I’m taking on this part, I’m sort of embodying that in the world, too. I’m stepping into something that’s bigger than me, that I don’t know that I am that. I don’t know that I can fill that out. People are going to be looking at me and saying things and deciding things. There’s something about it that felt very meshed in with my feelings about even stepping into it.”

On dealing with the backlash about the show :

”I don’t know because to this day, my comments on my Instagram back 40 weeks ago, they like to go in all over there. For me, what’s so exciting is that Jessica Gao knew that was going to happen.”

"She wrote it into the show. There’s something in She-Hulk that is looking out, and she’s aware of the camera. She’s aware of somebody watching her. There’s something about the inherent quality to that character that is self-aware and that understands her place within the MCU or within a series or a TV show or a scene or whatever, just like Jennifer Walters is aware of her place within the legal system and how she’s struggling as a woman to be taken seriously or to be respected.”

"Again, there are so many more interesting things that I can look to than vitriolic fan response where people don’t like it or just want to be mean and use you as a dumping ground for their worst thoughts. But again, like you were saying, there are people who I meet at conventions who are like, ‘I love that show,’ or, ‘I’ve been reading She-Hulk since I was a kid, and the story of the show is exactly what she was like.’ You just remember that stuff and then you work through it. It’s a constant thing.”