THUNDERBOLTS Actor Steven Yeun Teases His Mysterious, "Really Interesting" Role

THUNDERBOLTS Actor Steven Yeun Teases His Mysterious, "Really Interesting" Role

A lot of insiders remain convinced that Steven Yeun will play Sentry in Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts movie, but The Walking Dead alum is still staying tight-lipped about his role...

By MarkCassidy - Jun 02, 2023 10:06 AM EST
Filed Under: Thunderbolts

We recently learned that The Walking Dead alum Steven Yeun had joined the cast of Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts movie, and while his character remains under wraps, several online scoopers believe that he will be playing Sentry.

Yeun has dropped a few vague hints in previous interviews, but nothing particular character-specific, and while the actor remained as tight-lipped as ever during an actors' roundtable conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, he did reveal how he ended up landing his MCU debut role.

"It kind of came together in a weird way. Jake Schreier, who did episodes of Beef, he got the gig to direct it and he kinda saw me for this role, and I read the role, and I was like 'This is actually a really interesting role, I’d be down to explore this.'"

"I think it’s less about now checking things off a bucket list and more looking at an experience," he continued. "It’s more like ‘Do I want to experience that?’ Putting it out is a whole other thing that I’m gonna have to prepare for afterwards, but in the immediate, I’m just down to just experience that experience."

Right now, the prevailing theory points to Val unleashing Sentry - again, if he's even in the movie - in an attempt to secure the world's Vibranium reserves, and the anti-heroes that make up the Thunderbolts ultimately deciding to stand in his way.

Though other characters might well be added, the Thunderbolts roster currently consists of Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), John Walker/U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko).

Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) will put the team together, and may also be partially responsible for Sentry's creation. Harrison Ford will replace the late William Hurt as Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, who may wind up transforming into the Red Hulk.

Bear breakout Ayo Edebiri is also on board in a secret role.

Jake Schreier (Robot and Frank, Dave) is set to direct, with Black Widow scribe Eric Pearson penning the script.

Thunderbolts is slated to open on July 26, 2024.

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MrDandy
MrDandy - 6/2/2023, 10:10 AM
How did I miss that he was going to be in this? Just got done with Beef. He was great in that.
JonAwesome
JonAwesome - 6/2/2023, 10:41 AM
@MrDandy - beef was good, it really went off the rails though at the end.
incredibleTalk
incredibleTalk - 6/2/2023, 11:09 AM
@JonAwesome - Beef was pretty damn good ....very funny and great reality humor and acting...awesome!
GhostDog
GhostDog - 6/2/2023, 10:11 AM
They have an actual writer/director with a voice on this so I'm intrigued. Yeun is great in everything he does too.
tmp3
tmp3 - 6/2/2023, 10:13 AM
@GhostDog - Getting Lee Sung Jin to rewrite this shot it to my most anticipated mcu project outside of F4. Yeun’d gotta be one of the best actors under 40 rn
GhostDog
GhostDog - 6/2/2023, 10:20 AM
@tmp3 - This could be something. And I like the cast/characters a lot. Like Suicide Squad, its an eclectic mix of players and if there’s one thing inherent in the concept of bad guys having to do good things, it’s the capacity for chaos.

Beef was definitely chaos-inducing. Also, I took it as a show about cynical people confronting a deep sadness within. This cast of Thunderbolts has that
StSteven
StSteven - 6/2/2023, 4:09 PM
@GhostDog - Yeah, I agree about the characters. I know that a lot of people were expecting a roster closer to the comics (and nothing says that is is the final roster in this movie OR that it can't change on down the road when more characters are introduced in the MCU, assuming that the TBs return in future movies), but I think that there's a reason that a lot of the roster seem to be Super Soldier variations, which likely has to do with who they are going to go up against. If it is indeed the Sentry, he could be Val's attempt at creating a SUPER Super Soldier which ends up driving him crazy and he goes rogue, in which case it would make sense to get as many other SSs together as you could to fix your mistake.

AND, let's not forget that pretty much all of the current roster were at some point criminals, which could be what Val holds over them to get them to join the team. Dunno. Makes sense to me.
KaptainKhaos
KaptainKhaos - 6/2/2023, 10:20 AM
IT'S JOHN CENA *THEME MUSIC INTENSIFIES*
narrow290
narrow290 - 6/2/2023, 10:23 AM
He's a great actor. and he does look a bit beefed up....not making any assumptions
narrow290
narrow290 - 6/2/2023, 10:26 AM
Also, where the hell is Invincible season 2?
Matador
Matador - 6/2/2023, 10:59 AM
@narrow290 - Good Question.
Superspecialawesomeguy
Superspecialawesomeguy - 6/2/2023, 10:38 AM
As long as he's not playing Sentry...
Clintthahamster
Clintthahamster - 6/2/2023, 10:46 AM
@Superspecialawesomeguy - Why not?
Cap1
Cap1 - 6/2/2023, 11:05 AM
@ClintThaHamster - because a drawing of a character isn't Asian so therefore the concept of a live-action version being Asian is heinous, something dumb like that anyway
Clintthahamster
Clintthahamster - 6/2/2023, 11:07 AM
@Cap1 - Yeah, I mean, that's what I assumed, that it was racism, but you never know, he might be like "Because Yuen is such a great actor, I'd hate to see him wasted on what will likely be a one-off character," or "Because I hope they cast a trans actor as Sentry instead." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Superspecialawesomeguy
Superspecialawesomeguy - 6/2/2023, 11:10 AM
@ClintThaHamster - Becuase The Sentry's supposed to be a 6ft+ Adonis and Steven Yeun is barely 5'9 and is built like someone who hasn't even hit puberty yet lmao.
Cap1
Cap1 - 6/2/2023, 11:12 AM
@ClintThaHamster - Yeah, I just wanted to emphasise how stupid their reasoning will (likely) be. The idea of complaining about Yeun playing Sentry is so wildly inane, god forbid you cast one of the most exciting performers in a very exciting role!!!!
Superspecialawesomeguy
Superspecialawesomeguy - 6/2/2023, 11:14 AM
@Cap1 - Damn bro don't you want to hear my reasoning before hitting the Racism button lol?

Cap1
Cap1 - 6/2/2023, 11:17 AM
@Superspecialawesomeguy - I mean, it's kinda easy for u to act like it wasn't racism after we guessed it would be, but also, I didn't 'hit the racism button'
Urubrodi
Urubrodi - 6/2/2023, 11:46 AM
@Cap1 - I prefer to see characters portrayed as they are in the source material, including their appearance, as that racism now?
Superspecialawesomeguy
Superspecialawesomeguy - 6/2/2023, 11:48 AM
@Cap1 - "I mean, it's kinda easy for u to act like it wasn't racism after we guessed it would be".

Well that's quite the deductive reasoning you got there Batman but did it ever occur to you that there might more than one reason an actor might not be right for a role apart from racism? o_0

"...but also, I didn't 'hit the racism button"

Well no one mentioned race before that so why'd you bring it up?

Clintthahamster
Clintthahamster - 6/2/2023, 12:12 PM
@Superspecialawesomeguy - "no one mentioned race before"
You must have missed literally every other article about Yuen and Sentry on this very website.
Clintthahamster
Clintthahamster - 6/2/2023, 12:15 PM
@Urubrodi - So, I'm guessing you were super pissed about Jackman as Wolverine, Swinton as the Ancient One, and Yondu's mechanical head fin?
Superspecialawesomeguy
Superspecialawesomeguy - 6/2/2023, 12:20 PM
@ClintThaHamster - I meant that no one mentioned race in the comments that we had just made, that being said even if I did mean all comments concerning Steven Yeun being Sentry on this site; I would still think to check first what the reasoning was for the opinion made before accusing them of hate speech.
Urubrodi
Urubrodi - 6/2/2023, 12:30 PM
@ClintThaHamster - Things like Wolverine's height and Ancient One's gender are things that do bother a little bit (especially the gender one as that is a much bigger change) but it doesn't mean I hate their portrayal. You're missing the point (I'd even say on purpose at this point). If I can have a good actor that looks like the character in question instead of a good actor that looks nothing like the character, I'll have the first one. But I'm not simple minded enough that I will hate on the movie if they go for the second option. And let's be honest if we had let's say an Asian Peter Parker, that would be a much much bigger change than having a Peter Parker that is taller or shorter than usual, and I think everyone and their mother knows this, but you're gonna say it's racist. Yondu is a minor character and of course changes to him will have less of an impact. It's much smaller than let's say organic web shooters for Tobey's Spider-Man. But do I hate Tobey's version because of it? Of course not. Do organic web shooters bother me? Yes. Just use logic a little bit.
IronMan616
IronMan616 - 6/2/2023, 12:33 PM
@Cap1 - Ed Skrein stepped away from Hellboy because of the whitewashing controversy, Steven Yeun should step away from being Sentry because of the race bending controversy. Only fair. People should stop being hypocrites.
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