[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Season 1, Episode 5, “Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans.”]
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law‘s Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) faced her biggest battle yet this season when she found herself fighting super influencer Titania (Jameela Jamil) in court for control over the She-Hulk moniker in, “Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans.”
As viewers will recall, in Episode 4, Jennifer was served papers, claiming that Titania had trademarked the She-Hulk name. This would keep Jen from being able to refer to herself as the She-Hulk, which is fairly problematic considering her firm hired her on the basis that she performs her duties under the alter-ego.
While Jennifer is thrown by the situation, Titania loses no time in making the most of her trademark, peddling a brand of cosmetics. And in a meta turn, Jamil has been appearing in character around New York and Los Angeles, spreading Titania’s influence.
(Credit: Chuck Zlotnick/Disney+/Marvel Studios)
“Our show breaks the fourth wall and I wanna pay homage to that,” the actress tells TV Insider. “And also, I just think we’ve spoken enough about all these actors who method act for a year before the project. I’m doing method acting a year after the project,” she adds jokingly with a laugh. “It’s so stupid but so fun.”
Even with Titania’s influence though, her star power wasn’t enough to sway the court which sided in Jennifer’s favor after the lawyer proved she’d been using the name publicly through a dating app. The influencer was peeved beyond belief that she’d have to halt using the She-Hulk name and recall her products immediately, teeing up a fun conflict dynamic between the women.
While Jamil can’t share too much about what’s to come, the actress teases, “All I can say is that if you’ve ever read any of the comics, you will know that Mary or Titania as she’s known more widely, is relentless. She’s just like a mosquito. She will just keep coming again and again and again, after you. And so, just know she will be back and she will be even more infuriating.”
(Credit: Disney+/Marvel Studios)
Jamil, who is best known for her role as Tahani Al-Jamil in the NBC comedy The Good Place knows a thing or two about playing a character who can be insufferable at times. But it’s something the star enjoys in roles. “I love a character that people love to hate,” she says. “I think there’s nothing more delicious than playing those characters.”
One of Titania’s irritating traits arose in the form of instigation through fashion. It’s no coincidence that the super influencer chose green as her courtroom color palette. “We changed the color of her eyes for that entire episode. I’ve got big, bright green eyes,” Jamil shares. “She’s trying to prove a point and she’s just very crass. She’s not subtle, and I think that it’s incredibly enjoyable that she would think wearing green would make her more likely to win the case.”
Jamil adds with a giggle that it “makes me laugh a lot and she just enjoys getting inside Jennifer’s head and winding her up. She is just a messy petty queen.” And part of building that “petty queen” persona was embracing the L.A. accent. “It’s a very influencer accent,” Jamil acknowledges. “It definitely helped bring her to life. We wanted her to be quite cartoonish in her appearance and in her portrayal. And there’s a lot of brilliant spoof and satire in She-Hulk. So we were satirizing the idea of the absolute worst kind of influencer.”
The actress says that the show is hoping to make the point that “what some influencers put out into the world is genuinely a bit evil and the lies they tell and the way they make people feel. So it felt quite fitting to have an influencer play a supervillain.”
Even more fun? “The L.A. accent just kind of added that flare of ridiculous, plus it was just so funny to me, the idea that this incredibly strong, violent, powerful, scary woman speaks like this,” Jamil says with an American twist to her British accent. “We’ve just never seen that before. And I think that that’s sad,” she adds in a joking tone.
Get ready to see more from Titania as She-Hulk‘s season continues on Disney+.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, New Episodes, Thursdays, Disney+