Marvel Star David Harbour Excited For the Action Challenges of Thunderbolts

David Harbour is hitting something of an action streak in his career right now, but as he says himself, it’s going to be Marvel’s “Thunderbolts that pushes me the hardest.” Our ComicBook Nation show sat down for a quick chat with Harbour for his new movie Violent Night, in which he plays a version of Santa Claus who gets caught up in a Die Hard situation while making his Christmas Eve rounds. 

The film (from Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters‘ Tommy Wirkola) requires some pretty wild action sequences from Harbour while wearing a Santa suit, no less. During the interview, the question of which project is challenging Harbour the most: Violent Night, the upcoming final season of Netflix’s Stranger Things, or Marvel’s Thunderbolts movie. According to Harbour, while the Duffer Bros.’ always-growing ambitions for Strangers Things are demanding, nothing can compare to the scope and challenge of what Marvel Studios does:

I think that like, in terms of the duration and the things that we do, Stranger Things tests me in a lot of ways. But in terms of the actual fights themselves, I think Marvel really knows how to put you through the wringer – in a great way. It doesn’t always show up onscreen but the choreography of those fights can be so complex and so big – and I’ve learned so much since the first one – since Black Widow – that I’m excited to get back in there and do some of the choreography that I wasn’t able to do. Because it’s been the past what, four years I’ve been basically training. So I think it’ll be Thunderbolts that pushes me the hardest.”

Marvel’s Thunderbolts Movie (2024) 

Thunderbolts will see David Harbour return as Alexei Shostakov – aka The Red Guardian from Black Widow. Red Guardian will be joining a team organized by CIA agent Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Drefus) of various morally-gray characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe espionage world, including Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier, Hannah John-Kamen’s Ava Starr / Ghost, Wyatt Russell’s John Walker / U.S. Agent, Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova / Black Widow, and Olga Kurylenko’s Antonia Dreykov / Taskmaster. Harrison Ford has also joined the cat as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, replacing the late William Hurt

While no plot details have been revealed – even to some of the actors, apparently – David Harbour did tell ComicBook.com that he did know the story of the Thunderbolts movie, which will also include a “bomb drop” development for the MCU, likely changing things as we know it at the end of Phase 5.

Thunderbolts is set for a release date of July 26, 2024.