If you’re worried that the upcoming Thunderbolts movie, slated to premiere in 2024, will be the last you’ll see of Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian, you’re not alone. David Harbour is right there with you. The Stranger Things actor is a big fan of the character as well. And it isn’t just because he also happens to play him on the screen.
“I do. I love Red Guardian. I can’t wait to pull back the layers,” Harbour told GamesRadar in a recent interview.” The great thing about him is that he’s not very well-defined in the comics, like some of the other Marvel superheroes. So we can play with him in a different way, and be surprising and unexpected.”
Red Guardian first appeared in Marvel Comics in the late 1960s as the Soviet Union’s answer to Captain America. Harbour’s character in the MCU has a similar origin story although is slightly worse for wear and tear after a years-long stay in a Russian prison (Harbour’s characters apparently just can’t avoid Russian prisons, apparently). Now free he will join up with the MCU version of the Thunderbolts super-team, whatever that may turn out to be, where he will join forces with the likes of Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier and Wyatt Russel’s U.S. Agent, as well as reuniting with “daughter” Yelena, the newest Black Widow played by Florence Pugh. Something Harbour is especially looking forward to as he informed GamesRadar:
“I love Florence [Pugh] as Yelena. And then you throw in Wyatt from Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Sebastian. You have all these great, colorful characters. I’m really excited for that movie.”
— David Harbour
Given Marvel’s propensity for keeping a franchise around for at least three movies, we have a suspicion that Harbour will get his wish to play the character at least a few times more.
In the meantime, fans can catch Harbour in the upcoming Violent Night where he plays Santa Claus himself and goes toe to toe with a gang of international mercenaries led by John Leguizamo. The film opens just in time for the most wonderful time of the year on Dec. 2.