Thunderbolts star David Harbour says audiences will see more of an emotional relationship between Red Guardian and Florence Pugh‘s Yelena Belova.
What’s next for Red Guardian and Yelena in Thunderbolts?
Harbour appeared on Jon Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast where he was promoting his latest movie Gran Turismo. Taking a moment to tease the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe installment, Harbour discussed what fans can expect in the evolving but dysfunctional family dynamic established in 2021’s Black Widow.
Simultaneously, Harbour gave credit to Marvel Studios as well as Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier (Netflix’s Beef) for their ability to be flexible to changes during production.
“I think we were gonna go and then I think they did want the opportunity to change some stuff,” Harbour said. “The interesting thing about Marvel that’s so great about them is they do rework stuff even big productions. Like Black Widow, the entire third act was reworked as we were shooting which is incredible and so they just want that freedom. The script we have is really tight and really great and our director Jake [Schreier] thinks it’s great but they just want the freedom. They don’t want to be stuck in the middle of a shoot and then having to go like you know we can’t rewrite this.”
In addition to the MCU production team, Harbour praised the creative minds at the studio and how they fleshed out Red Guardian and Yelena’s relationship.
“I started working on it already and it’s like phenomenal,” Harbour continued. “Again, it’s hard to these projects because I sound like such a dumb idiot so all I say is like that’s a great script. But it’s true. I’m blessed to work with the Duffers, who write some of the greatest scripts on television and this, you know, these Marvel writers are writing incredible epic stories and they’re letting the Red Guardian do stuff that he’s never done before. That relationship with Yelena, we get to go into that more, and it’s funny and satisfying in a real emotional way. Yeah, I’m just really blessed with these two amazing projects that aren’t shooting.”
Directed by Schreier with a script by Beef writer Lee Sung Jin, Thunderbolts will see Harbour’s Red Guardian and Pugh’s Yelena join forces with fellow MCU stars Sebastian Stan as The Winter Soldier, Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster, Wyatt Russel as U.S. Agent, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine. Additionally, Harrison Ford replaces the late William Hurt as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, and Steven Yeun stars in a mystery role.
Thunderbolts is scheduled to arrive in theaters on December 20, 2024
