Lewis Pullman Gushes About "Amazing" Florence Pugh — & Reacts To Fans Shipping Bob And Yelena

The actor shares that one non-costume-related challenge the cast faced was getting through a particularly funny scene without laughing. After Yelena (Florence Pugh), Bob (Lewis), Walker (Wyatt Russell), and Ava (Hannah John-Kamen) survive a trap from Valentina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) at the beginning of the movie, they realize the only way to escape is to do a four-man climb up an elevator shaft.

The scene "was so absurdly practical for a superhero movie. And [director Jake Schreier] continually was like, 'Is this insane that I put this scene in here?'" Lewis says. "We got very close — I'm surprised they even got enough footage to cut it into a scene, because we were laughing so hard at the absurdity of these superheroes [deciding] that's our last resort. We're gonna go back to back and just climb this thing...like, okay."

The elevator climb is just one scene Lewis remembers fondly, and he promises filming with the cast and crew was "a criminal amount of fun."

"I mean, every scene is such a blast with Florence because she's such a goof and is so capable of keeping it light and just being a clown, and then dropping into the most amazing performance ever," he continues.

And when I ask whether there's a Thunderbolts* cast group chat, Lewis Pullman admits he doesn't know why there isn't one...and says he might start one himself. "We're all pretty bad at communicating like over all of our emails and and texts," he jokes. "I wouldn't count on any of the Thunderbolts* to get back to you within probably a couple days, so it might be a scattered, but it'd be a fun one. I mean, it's a rowdy crew. We should do it. I'll start it. Maybe."

That lighthearted love that developed between the Thunderbolts* cast definitely comes through onscreen, and provides a much-needed emotional foundation for the film. But the family dynamic isn't the only thing people are loving about the movie — more than a few have started shipping Bob and Yelena as a romantic couple. Apparently, Lewis Pullman had no idea.

"Oh, my God! I haven't seen that," he laughs. "That's so funny. It was never something we talked about as being a thing, you know. I think that it was more to show those relationships that are almost your sister from another life that you're hopefully lucky enough to cross paths with. And when you find that person, not wanting to let them go. How rare that is.

"Florence and I shared so many similarities with our characters and with the topics," he continues. "So it was easy to go into these scenes with truth together, and understand and support one another. So I'm glad that that resonated in one way or another."

"I'm really just proud of everyone involved," Lewis says. "I think there was a lot of fun risks that we were able to take, but that's not to say that it wasn't, as it always is with risk taking, a little bit scary. And so it's just nice to hear that there's been some people that that it's connected with."

Thunderbolts*, which is being heralded as the ultimate cure to superhero fatigue, sees Yelena and a group of anti-heroes struggling to come to terms with their past and carve out a new future for themselves. And when Bob — and the serious darkness he's carrying — gets added to the group, the stakes get higher than ever.

Lewis refers to Bob's darkness (also called Void) as the devil on the character's shoulder. We see Void literally consume everyone and everything it touches in darkness before trying to convince Bob he should just give up.

"Jake and I spent so much time kind of talking about and trying to articulate exactly what the Void means to Bob, and how he should be actualized," he reveals. "I think for a while I wanted his silhouette obviously to be strikingly different from from Bob's and from the Sentry's, and I wanted his voice to be too. So in the beginning it was a lot slower and more gravelly, and kind of droney, and then we realized it was a little too far from Bob."

"This is part of Bob's conscious, like this is that devil on your shoulder," he continues. "This is that voice that we all have that tells us that we're not worth it, or that we should just give up...It did inform going back and forth between the Void and Bob, like, exactly what his inner monologue is, and how it sounds, and to kind of have that as a mantra going through those scenes was really helpful."

But like so many Marvel movies, our group of anti-heroes save the day before the credits role. And after filming Thunderbolts*, the cast got to reunite on the set of Avengers: Doomsday for a post-credits scene. 14 months after the team takes on the mantle of The New Avengers, Yelena and Bucky are investigating a unidentified ship while Bob sits in the corner reading.

"I actually finished that whole book," Lewis says of filming the scene. "In a very apt way, it was a little isolating in where I think Bob probably is mentally. He's a little like, 'Well, where do I stand now? What's my duty, and what what is my purpose now? And how can I be helpful?"

"It was such an interesting thing to like, come back to the story that long after," he adds. "We shot that literally weeks ago, so I can't believe that how fast the turnaround was on that. But it was fun, it was a cool little taste into what's to come."

Lewis Pullman also can't help but sing the Russo Brothers' praises as directors. "I've been such a fan of theirs for such a long time, and so it's cool to see how they operate a set," he says. "It's almost like some cool witchcraft that they have where it's like, obviously a really big set, but they almost hypnotize you into not realizing that it's even being shot. And then it's happening. They're so casual in this way, while also caring a lot."