Florence Pugh’s ‘Black Widow’ Debut Earns a Very Special Gift From Boyfriend Zach Braff

Marvel’s Black Widow opened in theaters this weekend, marking the end of one era and the start of another for the studio. The film is Scarlett Johansson‘s last movie as Natasha Romanoff, but it also introduces Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, who will also appear in the Disney+ series Hawkeye. To mark Pugh’s Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, her boyfriend, former Scrubs star Zach Braff, shared a very special gift he commissioned for her.

Braff, 46, posted a photo of art by comic book artist Phil Noto, featuring Pugh, 25, in full costume as Yelena. “Go see Black Widow this weekend and watch [Pugh] save the world,” Braff wrote. “I commissioned this painting from the legendary painter and comic book artist [Noto].” Noto also shared the art on his own Instagram page.

Pugh and Braff have been dating since April 2019, after she appeared in his short film In the Time It Takes to Get There. The two live together in Los Angeles. They have often been criticized on social media because of their age difference, which they have defended several times. In an emotional April 2020 Instagram video, Pugh said she can make up her own mind on who to love.

“I do not need you to tell me who I should and should not love, and I would never in my life ever, ever tell someone who they can and cannot love. It is not your place. It has nothing to do with you,” Pugh told Instagram followers. “The abuse that you throw at him is abuse that you’re throwing at me, and I don’t want those followers… I don’t want that on my page. It’s embarrassing, it’s sad and I don’t know when cyberbullying became trendy.”

Pugh scored a breakthrough year in 2019 when she starred in Fighting With My Family, Little Women, and Midsommar in the same year. Little Women earned Pugh an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress thanks to her performance as Amy March. Pugh will next be seen in Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling with Harry Styles. She plays Yelena in Hawkeye, which hits Disney+ later this year.

While Black Widow sees Pugh joining the Marvel universe, it also sees Johansson leaving the franchise. In an interview with Fatherly this week, Johansson confirmed this is the last time she will play Natasha. She has been playing the part since Iron Man 2, which hit theaters in 2010. Although her character died in Avengers: Endgame (2019), her solo Black Widow movie is set after Captain America: Civil War (2016).

“I have no plans to return as Natasha,” Johansson told Fatherly. “I feel really satisfied with this film. It feels like a great way to go out for this chapter of my Marvel identity. I would love to be able to continue to collaborate with Marvel in other ways because I think there’s just an incredible wealth of stories there. Re-imagining this genre is something that I find very interesting. I think there’s a lot of opportunities to tell these stories in different ways than audiences have come to expect.”