Marvel's 'Thunderbolts*' brings a new team of antiheroes to the big screen. Here's what to know about the cast and characters.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays Valentina Allegra de Fontaine
In "Thunderbolts*," Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is the director of the CIA, who sets up the trap that brings the team of superheroes together.
Valentina appeared in "Black Widow" and "Falcon and the Winter Soldier," where she recruited John Walker and Yelena Belova. In "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" she spied on the Wakandans. So, it is unclear where her loyalties lie.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, an Emmy-winning actor known for starring in "Seinfeld" and "Veep," plays Valentina.
Florence Pugh plays Yelena Belova
Yelena Belova is the adoptive sister of Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), one of the original Avengers. In 2021's "Black Widow," a Soviet spy agency placed the two in a fake family and sent them to America on an undercover mission as children.
After the mission was completed, the family was separated and Yelena and Natasha became Russian superspies known as Black Widows. By the end of the movie, Yelena and her adopted family had shut down the Black Widow program.
In the series "Hawkeye," audiences learned that Yelena was among the many who vanished when Thanos erased half of all living things in the universe in "Avengers: Infinity War." Natasha died in "Avengers: Endgame" before the Avengers could bring Yelena back to life.
Yelena attempted to kill Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) to avenge Natasha, but she eventually forgave him.
In "Thunderbolts*," Yelena tries to find another way to move past her grief and trauma.
Florence Pugh, an Oscar-nominated actor whose previous movies include "Oppenheimer," "Midsommar," and 2019's "Little Women," plays Yelena.
Sebastian Stan plays Bucky Barnes
Bucky Barnes is a childhood friend of Steve Rogers, the first Captain America.
After a near-death experience in "Captain America: The First Avenger," Bucky became the Winter Soldier, a brainwashed super-assassin. Steve saved Bucky and the Wakandans freed him of the brainwashing.
In "Thunderbolts*," audiences learn that Bucky has become a congressman.
Sebastian Stan, who got his first Oscar nomination for playing Donald Trump in the 2024 film "The Apprentice," stars as Bucky.
David Harbour plays the Red Guardian
Alexei Shostakov, also known as the Red Guardian, first appeared in "Black Widow" as a Soviet super-soldier. After he was cast aside by Russian forces, he worked with his adoptive daughters, Yelena and Natasha, to shut down the Black Widow program.
In "Thunderbolts*," the Red Guardian is still trying to prove that he can be a great hero.
Wyatt Russell plays John Walker
John Walker is a former army captain who was appointed the new Captain America in "Falcon and the Winter Soldier."
Walker later took a super soldier serum so he could live up to the Captain America status, but the US government stripped Walker of the Captain America title after he brutally killed a surrendering Flag Smasher in retaliation for his partner's death.
Valentina recruited Walker at the end of the series and gave him the new mantle of US Agent.
Wyatt Russell, the son of actors Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, plays John Walker.
Hannah John-Kamen plays Ghost
Ava Starr, introduced in the 2018 movie "Ant-Man and the Wasp," has the ability to move through solid objects.
After a quantum tunnel exploded, killing her parents and giving her unstable powers, Ava was discovered by SHIELD, a spy organization in the Marvel universe, and turned into an espionage operative known as Ghost. Ghost's powers were killing her until Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Williams) transferred quantum energy to Ghost to stabilize her in the "Ant-Man" sequel.
Hannah John-Kamen, who starred in "Killjoys" and "Ready Player One," plays Ghost.
Olga Kurylenko plays Taskmaster
Antonia Dreykov is the daughter of General Dreykov, an antagonist who appeared in " Black Widow."
In the 2021 film, her father turned her into Taskmaster, a brainwashed assassin who can copy people's fighting techniques. At the end of the movie, Natasha freed Taskmaster from her brainwashing.
However, it appears she is still an assassin in "Thunderbolts*."
Olga Kurylenko, who starred in "Quantum of Solace," plays Taskmaster.
Lewis Pullman plays Bob
Bob is a new character whom Yelena, Ghost, and Walker come across while trying to kill each other.
The character is based on the comic book character Sentry, a man who signed up for a government experiment to recreate Steve Rogers' super soldier serum. As a result, Bob gained various powers, including super strength, speed, and flight.
In the comic books, the experiment also created a dark entity inside Sentry, known as the Void, which wants to take over his body and destroy the world.
Lewis Pullman, known for his Emmy-nominated role in "Lessons in Chemistry" and "Top Gun: Maverick," plays Bob.
Geraldine Viswanathan plays Mel
Mel is another new character in the main cast of "Thunderbolts*" and she is Valentina's assistant.
Fans have theorized that the character could be based on Songbird, who is a member of the comic book version of the Thunderbolts team. Songbird can create solid constructs out of sound and hypnotize people with her voice.
Geraldine Viswanathan, who starred in "Blockers" and "Drive-Away Dolls," plays Mel.
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Buzz Feed
2 hours ago
- Buzz Feed
22 Wild Facts About Old Hollywood Celebrities
Shirley Temple was so popular and talented that there was a conspiracy theory she was not a child at all, but an adult with dwarfism. In fact, she was investigated by the Vatican, who sent a priest to confirm she was in fact a child — which they were, apparently, able to do. Many celebrities from the '40s were actually spies during World War II, including Josephine Baker. She lived in Nazi-occupied France and would flirt with Nazi officials and get them tispy until they divulged military secrets, then write the secrets down on invisible ink and stash them in her underwear. MLB Baseball player Moe Berg worked for the predecessor to the CIA (the Office of Strategic Services), and once traveled to Switzerland with orders to assasinate German scientiest Werner Heisenberg if he discovered the Germans might soon be able to develop an atomic bomb. Famous chef Julia Child worked for the same organization before becoming famous, with her most notable job being to create "cakes" that were used as shark repellant. And Cary Grant reportedly spied on people in Hollywood to find Nazi sympathizers, including the German-born Count Kurt von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow, who had married heiress Barbara Woolworth Hutton. Grant actually ended up marrying the heiress after she separated from her husband. Also during WWII, Audrey Hepburn (as a child) used to perform at secret concerts in the Netherlands to raise money for the Dutch resistance, risking discovery and punishment from Germans. Oh, and BTW, guess who was allegedly a Nazi informant? Coco Chanel. During World War II, Coco Chanel was named as a Nazi informant by friend Vera Bate (who herself confessed to being a German agent). The French government arrested Chanel, who had several ties with Nazi intelligence organization Abwehr and its members. Chanel was eventually released due to a lack of evidence and possible help from friend Winston Churchill. Chanel's Nazi ties remained hidden for decades, though her "fear and hatred for Jews" was allegedly "notorious." Lucille Ball once claimed that she picked up Morse code during WWII through her lead teeth fillings. While driving home (and having previously experienced picking up music through her teeth), she began to hear a "de-de-de-de" sound. "As soon as it started fading, I stopped the car and then started backing up until it was coming in full strength. DE-DE-DE-DE-DE-DE DE-DE-DE-DE! I tell you, I got the hell out of there real quick. The next day I told the MGM Security Office about it, and they called the FBI or something, and sure enough, they found an underground Japanese radio station. It was somebody's gardener, but sure enough, they were spies," Ball recounted. The story sounds completely ridiculous, but it's possible it was true. There is no record of Ball talking to the FBI, or Japanese spies being found in that area at that time, but there is evidence shrapnel in someone's body, at least, can pick up AM radio waves, which suggests lead tooth fillings could work the same way. Cary Grant tried LSD over a hundred times in the 1950s as a form of psychotherapy to deal with his childhood trauma. 'After weeks of treatment came a day when I saw the light,' Grant said. 'When I broke through, I felt an immeasurably beneficial cleansing of so many needless fears and guilts. I lost all the tension that I'd been crippling myself with. First I thought of all those wasted years. Second, I said, 'Oh my God, the humanity. Please come in.'' Eartha Kitt reportedly once had a threesome with James Dean and Paul Newman. She's been quoted as having said, 'Those two beauties transported me to heaven. I never knew that lovemaking could be so beautiful," though this quote is extremely difficult to confirm. In fact, there are quite a lot of scandalous sexual secrets from Old Hollywood that can't be 100% confirmed but are still fun to hear. For instance, there's speculation that Marlon Brando and James Dean had an S&M-based relationship. Ernest Hemingway once inspected F. Scott Fitzgerald's dick in the bathroom because Fitzgerald was worried it was too small after his wife Zelda complained about it. Hemingway assured him he was "perfectly fine,' telling Fitzgerald, "You look at yourself from above and you look foreshortened. Go over to the Louvre and look at the people in the statues and then go home and look at yourself in the mirror in profile." In another example featuring a famous writer, James Joyce wrote some truly scandalous love letters to his wife Nora Barnacle, many of which extolled her farts. 'You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you, big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole. It is wonderful to fuck a farting woman when every fuck drives one out of her. I think I would know Nora's fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also.' Agatha Christie, possibly the most famous writer in the mystery genre, once created her own mystery when she disappeared in 1926 for 11 days — and the reason is still contested. After putting her daughter to bed, Christie (who was aware her husband was having an affair), drove off and her car was later found abandoned, hanging over the edge of a pit. She had left three letters behind, one to her brother-in-law claiming she had gone to a spa, another to her secretary with "scheduling details," and a third to her husband, who never revealed what the letter said. To find her, the police dredged a lake, brought in dogs, enlisted the help of over 10,000 people, and even looked to her novels for clues. She was eventually found at a spa, like she had told her brother-in-law — except according to her husband, she no longer remembered who she was or recognized him. She had checked in under his mistress' name. In the only time Christie ever spoke of it, she admitted to considering driving into the pit her car was found by, and hitting her head — this, accompanied by the trauma of her husband cheating and her mother dying, led to memory loss. Still, people have continued to speculate it was all a publicity stunt. Steve McQueen came very close to being killed by the Manson family along with Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and Steven Parent. He had been invited to Tate's house that night, and the only reason he didn't go, according to his then-wife Neile Adams, was that he 'ran into a chickie and decided to go off with her instead." According to a biography of McQueen, he had been having an affair with a blonde woman at the time, and even invited her to come to Tate's with him. However, she said "she had a better idea for just the two of them." McQueen, unlike Tate,* was on a list of targets for the Manson family. His death was planned to look like a suicide. Tate and her friends weren't specifically targeted, according to prosecutors — she just happened to live in the house once owned by music producer Terry Melcher, who had rejected proposals to make a record with Manson. Speaking of serial killer Charles Manson — he was friendly with a number of big players in Hollywood, including Dennis Wilson and Mike Love, the co-founders of the Beach Boys. In fact, Manson and his friends actually moved into Wilson's house. Wilson later allegedly told Love that he'd seen Manson murder a Black man (though this is contested), causing Wilson to break off the friendship. Marilyn Monroe's last known words were to actor Peter Lawford, who was a brother-in-law to Robert and John F. Kennedy, as he had married their sister, Pat Kennedy. He stated she ended the call with, "Say goodbye to Pat, say goodbye to Jack, and say goodbye to yourself, because you're a nice guy." The Jack in reference was then-President JFK. This is noteworthy because there were longstanding rumors of an affair between JFK and Monroe, as well as Robert F. Kennedy and Monroe. There are also rumors that Robert F. Kennedy visited her that night, though this was denied by the Kennedys. Her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, who was there all day and night and was the one to find her dead, later claimed Robert had visited and they'd fought. When Murray found Marilyn dead around 3:30 a.m., she was reportedly holding her phone, and then-LA chief of detectives Thad Brown reportedly claimed she was found with a crumpled-up piece of paper with the number for the White House on it. Besides her connections to the Kennedys, there were other suspicious details around Monroe's death. Murray initially called Monroe's psychiatrist, Dr. Greenson, who called the doctor who had prescribed the pills, Dr. Engelberg, before calling the police. The police did not arrive for close to an hour after Murray first saw Monroe's body. Lawford later claimed that he'd heard about her death at 1:30 a.m. The wife of Monroe's press relations manager Arthur Jacobs also later claimed that her husband had received the call that Marilyn was dead at 10:30. Natalie Wood, who starred in a number of films including West Side Story, Rebel Without a Cause, and Gypsy, also died under extremely mysterious circumstances. The 43-year-old was with her husband Robert Wagner on his boat on a weekend vacation from filming Brainstorm when she drowned. According to Wagner himself (though he initially denied this), he and Wood argued, and then he went to bed without her. The next morning, her body was found a mile away. Wood had been drinking, and it's possible her death was an accident, but she was found with bruises that could mean she was attacked. Nearby witnesses had heard a woman scream. The captain of the boat, Dennis Davern, allegedly drunkenly confessed to Wood's sister years later that he'd seen Wagner push Wood, who then fell overboard, and that Wagner refused to rescue this is unconfirmed. Wagner has denied he had anything to do with Wood's death. But I mention this one specifically for a wild Hollywood fact that not many people seem to know — Christopher Walken, Wood's Brainstorm costar, had also been on the boat that night. He had reportedly also argued with Wagner, and Wagner was (according to Davern) angry Natalie had invited him. Walken has not said much about the night beyond affirming it was an accident and that he had nothing to do with it. "I don't know what happened. She slipped and fell in the water. I was in bed then. It was a terrible thing." He also said, "The people who are convinced that there was something more to it than what came out in the investigation will never be satisfied with the truth. Because the truth is, there is nothing more to it." One of the wildest Hollywood secrets involves Loretta Young and Clark Gable. For years, there were rumors Young's adopted daughter Judy was actually her biological daughter, conceived with Clake Gable. The rumors wouldn't be proven true until Young admitted to them in her posthumous memoirs. It turned out Young had conducted an elaborate cover-up to make it seem like she had adopted the child. Loretta even reportedly had Judy's ears pinned back in an operation because they so resembled Gable's. Gable never had any role in her daughter Judy's life. Young refused to tell Judy the truth, and according to Judy's memoir, when Judy confronted her about the rumors, Young ran into the house and Young never spoke publicly about the circumstances of Judy's conception, according to her daughter-in-law, Linda Lewis, in the '90s, Young had asked her what date rape meant after hearing the term on Larry King Live. After Lewis explained, Young replied, "That's what happened between me and Clark.' On the train ride back from shooting Call of the Wild on location, Gable had allegedly snuck into Young's compartment. According to Lewis, Young didn't want Judy to know, so Lewis kept quiet until both Young and Judy were dead. Finally, we'll end with a few last examples featuring Errol Flynn, because the man had a wild life and allegedly did some wild things. First of all, he wrote in his autobiography that he once had a job castrating young sheep with his teeth. Second, Flynn once apparently showed up on the doorstep of Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, angry about something she had written about him, and began masturbating. "I began laughing, and continued laughing until he finished with a dramatic flourish all over my doorstep," Hopper reportedly told Paul Newman. "I'll say one thing for Errol. He's the only man I know who can ejaculate in front of a fully dressed woman who's laughing derisively during the entire process." And finally, David Niven claims that Flynn once brought him along to view 'the best-looking girls in L.A.'...which, as it turned out, meant parking by Hollywood High to watch the girls get out of school. He then allegedly told a police officer who questioned why they were there that he was "enjoying the scenery." What shocking old Hollywood facts do you know? Let us know in the comments!
Geek Tyrant
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Disney Defends THUNDERBOLTS* Spoiler Reveal of THE NEW AVENGERS; Says Fans Actually Liked It — GeekTyrant
Marvel fans who hit theaters opening weekend for Thunderbolts* got the full payoff after months of speculation on what that sneaky little asterisk meant. It turns out, the team introduced in the movie is officially The New Avengers in the MCU, a reveal held back until the film's final scenes… only for Marvel to drop the twist in its marketing just a couple days later. As you know, that didn't sit well with a lot of fans. I saw so many complints about that. But, Disney believes that they made the right marketing move, and that fans actually liked it. Speaking with Empire, Ryan Stankevich, Disney's SVP of Marketing, addressed the controversy over the spoiler-heavy promotional materials that rolled out post-release: 'Discourse is a great part of the Marvel fan experience. For as many people who complained, we saw a large percentage say they thought it was really clever. Some people also complained we didn't do *The New Avengers with a 'z'! But we welcome healthy debate.' Yeah, I'd say the fans that already saw the movie where the ones that thought the marketing was clever because it didn't hurt their movie-going experience. The studio rebranded the movie as *The New Avengers on posters and promo assets shortly after Thunderbolts opened, a move that many saw as premature, especially considering Marvel's usual spoiler-free grace period on social channels. Fans who missed opening weekend understandably felt blindsided. In the film, the twist unfolds near the end after the Sentry situation spirals out of control, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine publicly spins her ragtag group of heroes, Yelena, Red Guardian, U.S. Agent, Bucky, Ghost, and Bob, into heroes by branding them the 'New Avengers.' It's a big PR move for her. The post-credits scene then reveals Sam Wilson is putting together his own real Avengers team… and he's not thrilled. A lot of Marvel fans hoping for a surprise in the theater got a Marvel-branded reminder… nothing's sacred when the marketing machine kicks in.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Kevin Feige Talks Thunderbolts* Post-Credit Scene, If It Connects to Fantastic Four Movie
Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige recently opened up about the mysterious post-credits scene in Thunderbolts* and what it could mean for The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Speaking to Empire Magazine, Feige was asked about the post-credits scene. In it, the New Avengers can be seen talking about their lack of support from society when they notice a spaceship has entered orbit. After taking a look, the spaceship is revealed to be none other than the Excelsior, the Fantastic Four's ship. Although Feige confirmed that the ship does indeed look like the one that belongs to the group, he then teased that the ship might not be the 'same ship' people are thinking of. 'Their ship is the Excelsior, and there is a Fantastic Four ship entering the MCU . . . But I'm not sure they're the same ship,' Feige teased. Fans were quick to begin theorizing on what Feige could have meant. The leading theory for most fans is that the ship is being piloted by none other than Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom. However, it remains to be seen when the post-credits scene is taking place, as many have also theorized the scene could be a moment from 2026's Avengers: Doomsday. Thankfully for fans, more information will come soon when The Fantastic Four: First Steps arrives in theaters on July 25, 2025. (Source: Empire)
