Marvel Studios' Hall H panel was filled with exciting announcements and reveals, including the
long-awaited cast details for the upcoming Black Widow movie. Among the actors joining the Cate Shortland-directed film is David Harbour, who has risen to Hollywood superstardom over the past few years thanks to his roles in
Stranger Things and
Hellboy. But joining the MCU is a totally different beast and Harbour has quite the task at hand in bringing Red Guardian (Alexei Shostakov) to life on the big screen.
"Not a lot of people know about him," Harbour said of Red Guardian, who is essentially the Russian equivalent of Captain America.
"That's one of the things I really like about this character," Harbour told Comicbook.
"There's an openness to interpretation. The one thing we do is know is that he's the counterpart to Captain Americaon the Russian Soviet side, but that way we have a lot of play with who he is and we are playing with him."
"He is really rich," he continued.
"Initially when I heard the pitch she [director Cate Shortland] was like 'He's this and he's this,' And I was like 'Yeah, I got it.'...he spins and he twists and he turns in ways that make sense and in ways I don't expect characters to go there. I expect characters to be a color or a flavor and we get to know them and this guy is really rich."
"In that way, I really am blessed to play this super three-dimensional character in this movie," he concluded.
While Shostakov has been a long-time agent of the KGB, his history in the comics isn't so black-and-white, so it's unclear what to expect from the Red Guardian in terms of being a friend or foe to Natasha Romanoff in the film. Speaking to Rotten Tomatoes, Harbour seemed to suggest fans will be in for quite a few twists.
"He's a very surprising character. You sort of think in the beginning of hte film he's one thing, and then he becomes very much another. There's a lot of movement to his character, a lot of arc. There's all sorts of humor and heart, which I think is in a lot of these Marvel movies," Harbour said.
Black Widow is slated to hit theaters on May 1, 2020. Check out a
description of the footage shown during the Marvel Hall H panel here.