Julia Louis-Dreyfus first appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the Disney+ series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (pictured above), where she played the morally dubious Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. She’s had a few other appearances in the MCU since then, but will play a larger role in the upcoming Thunderbolts, where her character will pull together a rag-tag group of superheroes (or anti-heroes) to fight… something. Louis-Dreyfus, it seems, is all about the fighting: In a recent interview, she said she wanted to join the combative fray.
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In a discussion with Variety, Louis-Dreyfus confessed she wanted to get physical in the upcoming movie. “I actually pitched it,” she said, “I told them I really, really want to fight. We’ll see if that happens. I haven’t seen the script yet.”
It turns out that Louis-Dreyfus has already had an impact on how her character is portrayed in the MCU. “In the original comic she has sort of a white streak in her hair, but I thought purple would make it a little more of this world today,” she said of the violet streak she sports in her previous MCU appearances. “And I didn’t want o her to look too much like Cruella, or anything like that.”
Fighting in a Marvel film, however, is no small feat, and the actor admitted that she “better get in shape” to be up to the task. She’ll be joined in the film by a slew of other MCU characters with lots of pugilistic experience under their belts, including Florence Pugh’s Yelena Bolova, Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, David Harbour’s Red Guardian, Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster, Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost, and Harrison Ford, who is taking over the role of Thaddeus Ross.
Thunderbolts is currently set to premiere in theaters on July 26, 2024.