The rumours are true—She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is the genuinely funniest Marvel Studios project to date. And we don’t just have “Pickle Rick”-writer and She-Hulk series creator Jessica Gao to thank for pushing the boundaries as far as they would go. As it turns out, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige told them to push things as far as they could go.
“I really got carte blanche from the beginning. There were times where I pulled back because I thought I had the constraints of the greater Marvel universe that I have to be aware of, and so many times times Kevin was actually the one who said like, no, push it further. He said, ‘Go wild, push it further, because we can always pull it back’,” Gao tells Esquire Middle East.
She-Hulk, of course was always destined to be an uproarious comedy that feels tailor made for this moment. Following Hulk’s cousin whose lack of an alter-ego allows her to be a big-green trial lawyer, She-Hulk has long been a fourth-wall breaking comedy-focused comic book, going back to the days of John Bryne’s run on the book, not to mention Dan Slott’s and Charles Soule’s.
The show found a perfect writer in Gao to hone that and fit it to the current comedy paradigm, a style she’d perfected on Rick & Morty, Silicon Valley and Robot Chicken, amongst others.
Through the show’s first episodes (with more to come in the coming weeks on Disney+ Middle East), there are numerous jokes and cameos that are shocking in the context of Marvel, even as action-comedies such as Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy had established a strong comedic voice for the broader Marvel cinematic universe.
To get to the bottom of how Gao and company pulled it off, we sat down with the writer to talk about crafting the series, working with “Daddy Feige”, some jokes that were left on the cutting room floor, and more.
Esquire Middle East’s’s interview with She-Hulk creator Jessica Gao
ESQ: She-Hulk feels like such a classic TV comedy. It’s so suited for the episodic format, rather than the six-hour movie formula. I kind of want this to be 22 episodes a year forever.
Jessica Gao: That might kill me, but yes, I do know what you mean. That is the beauty of television. That’s what I love about television—you do have the time and the space to actually hang out with a character and really get to know them and learn how they tick, rather than just be focused on one plot for an hour and a half.
ESQ: With the nature of She-Hulk, as in the comic, you always have the possibility to bring in anyone for any reason. How were the conversations in the writer’s team, and with Kevin Feige on figuring out what you could possibly do?
Jessica Gao: The most fun part about being in any writer’s room is the first several weeks when you’re blue skying ideas and throwing out every possibility. For us, because we knew we had this legal comedy format, where you kind of can have a case of the week if you choose to, it was a lot of us just mining all the movies, but also mining all the comics, and saying to ourselves, what’s a character that we want to see? And with each character, what’s a funny reason for them to be part of a lawsuit or a trial?
ESQ: Did you throw names like Benedict Wong and Charlie Cox at the wall and hope they stick? Did Marvel come to you with ideas?
Jessica Gao: With Wong, for example, what would be a great reason to bring him to court? Why would want be in court? Would he be getting sued? Or is he doing the suing? What kind of case would it be? That’s really where we started from. We’d pull characters that we wanted to use, and then we come up with a very character specific reason for them to be embroiled in some sort of legal battle.
And then, of course, we’d have to go ask Kevin—Daddy Feige— if we can actually use this character. Sometimes it’s a no because of rights issues. Sometimes it’s no because they’re already doing something with the character, but then, a third of the time, we get a yes. And then we couldn’t believe ourselves, and we would be so excited.
ESQ: Can you tell me any of the ideas that were on the cutting room floor?
Jessica Gao: I’ll tell you one that for we would never ever be able to use anyways, so it doesn’t matter. We had this whole running joke where the giant ants from Ant-Man were law firm because they had witnessed a crime and they were arranging to be put in witness protection.
One of our writers, Zeb wells, was so infuriated that that we were anthropomorphizing these ants so much, and he stood up and screamed at us. ‘What are we saying? That these ants understand what witness protection is?!’ And we’re like, okay, fine, we won’t do it.
ESQ: Please do it, please. In the 35-episode She-Hulk season two, I’m sure you can fit it in. I’m manifesting it.
Jessica Gao: Yes, yes, get ready for a five-episode giant ant arc.
ESQ: How did you make sure the humour worked in the confines of the Marvel universe? Part of the fun of this show is that you’re pushing at the edges—did you know where those edges were until you found them?
Jessica Gao: The great thing about working with Kevin Feige is that, and I was really pleasantly surprised by this, I really got carte blanche from the beginning. There were times where I pulled back because I thought I had the constraints of the greater Marvel universe that I have to be aware of, and so many times times Kevin was actually the one who said like, no, push it further. He said, ‘Go wild, push it further, because we can always pull it back’.
Pushing the boundaries with She-Hulk and thinking outside the box and having that freedom was really, really helpful. Having the man at the top telling me that was also just very, very reassuring.
ESQ: Where do you find the humour is rooted in She-Hulk, both for yourself and the show?
Jessica Gao: Very. My favorite type of comedy is taking a very high concept thing, and then really grounding it into the minutiae of everyday life. I just love the idea of seeing these types of characters that you’re used to seeing in a huge spectacular movie with all the action and all the stunts and all the high stakes of saving the universe, but then it’s like, well, let’s just see what happens to them on a regular weekday night.
ESQ: Like the Shawarma scene in Avengers but a whole series.
Jessica Gao: That’s exactly right!
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is now streaming on Disney+