David Harbour Teases Great Script For THUNDERBOLTS and The Dynamic Relationship Between Red Guardian and Yelena
Actor David Harbour (Stranger Things) is returning to the role of Red Guardian in the upcoming movie, Thunderbolts. He debuted the Marvel character in the MCU’s Black Widow, where we met a young Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and her undercover family, with Harbour playing her father Alexei aka the superhero Red Guardian. He will be joined in the new flick by his other daughter of yore, Yelena Belova, who is being played by returning actress Florence Pugh.
While speaking with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast (via CB) for his upcoming film, Grand Turismo, Harbour teased an emotional relationship with Yelena Belova, and he also praised Marvel Studios for taking the time to get the Thunderbolts right, saying:
"I mean, I think we were gonna go and then I think they did want the opportunity to change some stuff. 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."
Harbour continued:
"I started working on it already and it's like phenomenal. 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."
The film also stars Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Julie Louis-Dreyfus as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Wyatt Russell as US Agent, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster, Harrison Ford, who is taking on the role of General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, who is going to be President of the United States in Captain America: New World Order. Ayo Edebiri also joined the cast in an undisclosed role.
We don’t know much about what the story for Thunderbolts will entail, but we recently learned a new detail about the Thunderbolts team from Kevin Feige, and he shared that Bucky Barnes is set to lead the team in the movie.
Thunderbolts is set to premiere on July 26th, 2023. The production of Thunderbolts has been stalled due to the strikes.