Florence Pugh and David Harbour Discuss Their Characters’ Complicated Relationship in ‘Thunderbolts*’
While Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts* will bring together a team of anti-heroes and former villains from the disparate corners of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) for Florence Pugh and David Harbour, the film will be a family reunion.
Pugh and Harbour portray Yelena Belova and Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian in the upcoming film, reprising their roles from 2021’s Black Widow.
![thunderbolts](https://mickeyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/thunderbolts-movie-differences-1692790032984-1024x576.jpg)
![thunderbolts](https://mickeyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/thunderbolts-movie-differences-1692790032984-1024x576.jpg)
Marvel
Although technically, their characters are not related, Black Widow explored the messy father-daughter relationship that Yelena and Alexei had.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Pugh and Harbour discussed their characters’ relationships and revealed that Thunderbolts* will explore those ties even further.
“David and I, in the first movie, as much as we possibly could, squeezed as much as we could out of the time that we had together,” Pugh explained.
![Yelena Belova](https://mickeyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/black-widow-yelena-belova-1247502-1280x0-1-1024x513.jpeg)
![Yelena Belova](https://mickeyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/black-widow-yelena-belova-1247502-1280x0-1-1024x513.jpeg)
(Marvel)
“Knowing that we were both coming back to do any version of a second movie, there was no way that we couldn’t jump into it further and go where these people are in the state of their lives right now.”
Building on ‘Black Widow’
Commenting on the dysfunctional nature of Yelena and Alexei’s relationship, Harbour joked that it “starts out terrible, and then it ends pretty terrible too. Spoiler alert!” He laughed before getting serious.
“No, we saw some of it in ‘Black Widow,’ and we’re expanding on that. We start a couple years away from that.”
![Red Guardian](https://mickeyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-29-at-12-30-59-Thunderbolts-How-Did-Red-Guardian-Get-His-Powers-1024x512.png)
![Red Guardian](https://mickeyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-29-at-12-30-59-Thunderbolts-How-Did-Red-Guardian-Get-His-Powers-1024x512.png)
Photo: MCU
“Purely because of what [director] Jake [Schreier] wanted to make and the story that we were allowed to do, we were also, as characters that are hugely complex and very difficult to live alongside one another, able to go into a very bizarre but pure and human father-daughter relationship that I was so grateful to be able to do, especially with an actor like David,” Pugh added.
“We Just Feel Very Grateful”
Reflecting on how far their characters have come, Pugh noted that the stakes of Thunderbolts* help spotlight the relationship between Yelena and Alexei.
![](https://mickeyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Cate-Shortland.jpg)
Photo: Jay Maidment ©Marvel Studios 2020
“The fact that we’d been there before and done it before, the stakes just get so much higher,” Pugh said. “And it becomes more important. There is no way that we would have been able to do this movie without going there between the characters. So we just feel very grateful that we were allowed to dive in and do it properly.”
![](https://mickeyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/florencepugh-blackwidow-2000x1270-1-1024x650.jpeg)
![](https://mickeyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/florencepugh-blackwidow-2000x1270-1-1024x650.jpeg)
Source: nme.com
Thunderbolts* will hit theaters on May 2, 2025.
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