‘Thor: Ragnarok’ Spoilers: Cate Blanchett Felt ‘No Pressure’ Playing Female Villain

Academy Award-winning actress Cate Blanchett was given the honor of playing Marvel’s first female villain Hela, the goddess of death, in “Thor: Ragnarok.”

With such a huge role to take on, any actress would’ve felt pressured to do well and not let fans’ expectations down. But not Blanchett. In fact, the actress told Fandango that the best word to describe her experience as the villain would be “interesting.”

“What I like about playing her is that I really didn’t know anything about her and that’s really exciting,” she said. “I mean obviously, the deep, hardcore fan base would know a lot about her but there was kind of a really interesting process of discovery for me and I guess like any of the Marvel characters, they have really interesting and varied back stories so it depends which origin story you read as to why she’s been kept at bay for so long. But yeah, playing the Goddess of Death has been really interesting.”

As for the “pressure” involved in playing a female baddie, Blanchett dismissed it as “ridiculous.” “I mean, there’s a huge female fan base and having a daughter myself, you know, you want them to be able to identify with the bad-ass end of the spectrum as well as the heroes…so I didn’t feel pressure, I was super excited,” she said.

The only thing that actually deterred Blanchett from fully embracing the terrifying villain was her costume - a motion-capture suit.

“The headdress is such a huge part of when she comes into the height of her powers in the film,” Blanchett earlier told the Los Angeles Times. “I only wore that really in the photo shoots. I had to sort of imagine what it was like being a reindeer.”

Still, Blanchett succeeded in her role because she got the rest of the cast trembling at the sight of her. Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk, said Hela is the most formidable villain they ever came face to face with. “She plays the worst of the worst,” Ruffalo told Entertainment Weekly. “So evil. She is going to kill us. It’s such a great part she gets to play.”

“Thor: Ragnarok” will be released on Nov. 3.