David Harbour told Screen Rant exclusively that the upcoming Marvel movie Thunderbolts will take a closer look at the relationship between his Red Guardian AKA Alexei Shostakov and Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova.

Alexei and Yelena first appeared in 2021's Black Widow as part of Natasha Romanoff's (Scarlett Johansson) fake family. The Red Guardian and Yelena will be joined by US Agent, Taskmaster, Ghost and Bucky Barnes in Thunderbolts.

Harbour said that the movie will explore Yelena and Alexei's history, possibly their lives together with Melina in the Midwest. He also discussed Yelena reluctantly realizing that she actually needs Alexei's help.

Alexei vs. Yelena

“So they have a lot of unexplored history. There's a lot of details that the director, Jake, has gone into the great care of what their life was like in the Midwest when they were doing all that spy stuff. And then, a lot of that comes up in really fun, interesting, beautiful ways, which, like in the Black Widow movie came up with that song, American Pie. And there's just a lot of complexity between me and Florence's character, which I love,” he told the entertainment website.

Harbour continued, “And also they're two people that… she can't stand, but she needs some because she's incomplete in a certain way that he may be able to help her with. I think that's always so beautiful. Because I feel like our relationships are always so… Sometimes we don't get to choose the people that complete us. The people that we really need. I think that they exemplify that in their own way. It will be fun to bring that to life in the movie.”

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In Black Widow, Yelena's relationship with Alexei was strained, to say the least. Alexei didn't seem to recognize that he did something wrong, and that Yelena's acerbic attitude towards him was just a means to protect herself.

Things eventually came to a head when Yelena essentially forced Alexei to come to terms with his selfishness, and he ended up stepping up to protect his family. Thunderbolts will potentially show how Natasha's death and the five-year blip affected them.

While fans saw Florence Pugh appear in Hawkeye and treated the audience with her hilarious fish-out-of-water comments, David Harbour's Red Guardian and his endless exaggerations will be the perfect foil in what will be an anti-hero, found (faked?) family movie.