Another day, another awesome exclusive Avengers post for you. This time it’s an interview with Jeremy Renner who plays Hawkeye and Cobie Smulders who plays Maria Hill in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Warning: This post does contain spoilers about the movie so read at your own risk!

Avengers: Age of Ultron is officially in theaters and you can read my review now! My review was spoiler-free but I mentioned how much I loved Hawkeye’s storyline in this movie. He spent most of The Avengers under Loki’s spell but in Avengers: Age of Ultron we learned that he’s a crucial part of The Avengers by being able to ground them, he cares for his team, he’s funny AND that he has a FAMILY! I loved learning that when Hawkeye isn’t fighting bad guys he lives on a farm with two kids and a pregnant wife. After seeing the movie, I was thrilled for the chance to interview both Jeremy Renner and Cobie Smulders who plays the kick-ass Maria Hill.

Hawkeye as a Dad

Speaking of Hawkeye having a family {and Jeremy Renner being a Dad in real life!}, he was asked how he felt being a great role model for dads.

Jeremy laughed, saying,

Yeah, I don’t know. As far as like a role model, I don’t know. Those are always hard to talk to. I think you’d have to ask my daughter if I’m a good daddy role model.

I think it’s a cool aspect to the character that was brought up. It was brought up actually for the first Avengers but not even nearly as cool because they were gone. But, it’s a fantastic sort of reveal that he’s a daddy. And that’s what he fights for ’cause I think it’s a very emotional– for me personally it’s a very emotional thing. I think just in general I think that audiences can kind of grab on to that. ‘Cause it’s something very real.

Jeremy was also asked if he was ready for parents and kids to see Avengers: Age of Ultron and how they would connect with the Hawkeye character so much more because of the storyline. Was he ready for it?

I don’t know what that ultimately means. I mean, I think the greatest thing that I get out of this whole experience of being in this giant movie and the one prior is artistically, it doesn’t like really hit a lot of like nerves in my body. But it certainly– like when– soon as a five year old ran up to me that changed the game. I’m like, oh, wow, I have a five year old. And that’s amazing. And then here comes his dad in the same costume.

A little creepy. That’s the creepy part. But when the little kids come on up to you, God, it just crushes me. I’ll stop and do anything for a little creature, man. I’m crazy about them. So, I welcome it, I guess, is the short answer. I welcome that. If it’s the little kids. The grown ass people, stay out of the costume, man. Come on, I love you. I’ll see you at Comic-Con. That’s okay then.

Like we’re at Starbucks, dude. You know what I mean? I’m not kidding. We just happened to be in costume. Yeah, really?

Talking about us mom and dad bloggers interviewing him, he said, “This is like a mommy and me class. This is amazing. Trust me, I’ve been to them. Like the mister mommy and me. It’s awesome.”

Just sat with an army of “mommy bloggers” Didn’t know that was a thing til now, but I LOVED it!! #aou #marvel

— Jeremy Renner (@Renner4Real) April 11, 2015

Cobie Smulders on Maria Hill

There’s a fun scene where Thor and Tony Stark are going head to head about the women in their life and Maria Hill coughs, “Testosterone!”. I asked Cobie how she felt to be part of a cast with so many men.

It’s fun. It’s very fun. I mean it’s interesting because people talk about that a lot with these films that there’s few females. And it’s a male driven film. But maybe it’s because we’ve– this is our second one. We all get along so well. I don’t feel that divide on set. All the guys are really great and nice and handsome – every single one of them, some more than others. 

But it is fun. I mean we have some other strong females, Scarlet and now Lizzie. And it’s just nice seeing more women coming into these films.

In a previous interview, Cobie shared that she thought that her character was going to be serving coffee in the very beginning. She’s been in several movies {and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.} playing Maria Hill now, so we asked her how she felt about entering the role for this movie?

Well, I feel like I might still be making coffees. But at Stark Tower there might– just a really nice espresso machine. So it’s like really fancy coffees. No, I don’t think I’m serving coffees anymore. It’s really cool. I mean in the comic books Maria Hill is– she has her own story line. And she’s very smart. She’s very independent. She’s very controlling. It’s cool to see how now that this team is sort of under, Tony’s protection and sort of funded by him how that’s working in terms of privatizing security and her dealing with that. So it’s fun to sort of be a part of the team but also to be like managing everybody as well or trying to anyway.

Favorite Scenes in Avengers: Age of Ultron

When asked if they had a favorite scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jeremy said,

 Oh no, I don’t believe in favorites. I think they’re all equally torturous and wonderful.

Cobie shared,

I shot all of my scenes in Stark Tower, in the Avengers Tower now it’s called. I’m sure you guys all saw the movie. How amazing was that set? And it was all one set. I mean anytime that anyone was in the lab that was still on the same set.

Where Tony was working on his suits was right below it. And then the bar was just a few feet away thank goodness. So that was to me, it was really cool to play all these scenes out in one location. And it really sort of helped with performance as well.

How They Prepared for the Role Physically

We asked Cobie and Jeremy how they got physically fit for their roles with all of the action scenes they film and if there was a scene that was harder or difficult to film.

Jeremy said,

We train. We’re in the gym lifting weights, hurting our bodies. The hardest scene to film and difficult, I don’t know. They’re all quite difficult, I think. The first scene we shot was the end of the movie in Italy where the chaos is going. When there’s a lot of movie parts that’s where it gets a little tricky. Then the moving parts aren’t really there in real life. So that’s a little trickier. You’re stabbing things with arrows that don’t exist and then firing arrows that don’t exist to things that don’t exist.

It’s a little tricky to– and also to be precise with it and the camera angles. It’s just technical. That makes it quite difficult ’cause all the moving parts. But to me I think it’s fun because it’s like a dance. And there’s a technique to all that stuff. But it is quite arduous.

Cobie said,

Training – I mean every time these movies come up, you know, a couple months before, you start working out. I did a few stunts in this one, not as much as the super heroes in the film. But it’s good to get in shape. In terms of the most difficult scene, I feel like in this movie there’s a lot of scenes where we’re all in the scene together–

Jeremy chimed in, “Those are all difficult scenes, right?”

Yes, we have a lot of fun together. So it’s a hard group to wrangle as well. These scenes, we take multiple days to shoot them ’cause there’s so much coverage. So there is like on the third day you’re like, wait, what are we doing? What is the scene? And what did I say? And you sort of feel like you’re in this Groundhogs Day where you’re doing the same thing over. But you’re trying to remember exactly how you did it the day before. And so that’s– you know, that’s challenging. I mean that’s not a hard thing. But it can get a little bit tiring at times.

We also asked Cobie about her training with a gun since Maria Hill always seems to have a great aim.

She always hits him. I mean it’s like magic. That’s the great thing about being in these movies. You can shoot over here and that guy dies. Always hit your mark. It’s very exciting.

I did a lot of training ’cause I was actually quite terrified of guns. I kind of got over that fear through doing the first one. And then the second one you always have a day or two with whichever crewmember is sort of in charge of that to do some training beforehand. So I did that. But, like I said, I mean it’s very much just shoot in this direction. And, you know, I hope I look like I knew what I was doing. But yeah, most of the training came the first time around.

Hawkeye and Maria Hill in Future Movies

We also asked Jeremy and Cobie where they want to see each of their character’s go in the subsequent movies?

Cobie shared,

There’s so many different directions. There’s a plethora of comic books and cartoons and all these things that they could pull from. So for me personally, it’s hard to say. I mean, it’d be cool to learn more about Marie Hill’s past and sort of how she came to be where she is. But, yeah, it’s hard to say. It’s very much under Marvel’s control. And they’re very great at choosing great storylines. So we’ll see.

Jeremy also shared,

Yeah, I think for me, I have a lot of ideas. But it doesn’t really ultimately matter. I think the relationships are kind of what are interesting in this world with others. I’d just like to see the new ones start and others fade or whatever, just and deepen. I think that’d be interesting. That’s what I’d be curious about the next upcoming ones.

Since we’ve seen Hawkeye at home, we asked Cobie what she thinks Maria Hill is like at home. Cobie replied,

Oh, I feel like she sleeps in the Avenger’s Tower. Like her desk just kind of converts into a bed. And she gets her two hours. And then she springs back up and gets back to work. I don’t think she gets a lot of time off. I don’t think she has much of a personal life. It’d be an interesting thing to explore for sure. I don’t think that she’s getting out into the world very often.

I had such a great time talking with Jeremy Renner and Cobie Smulders about Avengers: Age of Ultron. If you’ve seen the movie, what do you think of Hawkeye and his family?

Avengers: Age of Ultron is in theaters now! Make sure to check out my previous interviews.

– Joss Whedon Talks Quicksilver {Spoilers}

– Interview with Joss Whedon

– Interview with Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans

– Interview with Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios

– Interview with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen

Disclosure: Disney provided an all expenses paid trip to Los Angeles including travel, accommodations and activities. All thoughts and opinions are my own.