Thunderbolts* cast and director unpack that Emperors New Groove-style stunt

The 36th chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe throws together a band of misfits to f*** around and find out. 

Thunderbolts* sees Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and a guy named Bob (Lewis Pullman) all somehow working together, but the film digs into some deeper themes of loneliness and despair.

With Beef director Jake Schreier at the helm, Thunderbolts*  finds human moments for these super-powered individuals. Mashable UK Editor Shannon Connellan sat down with the director, as well as John-Kamen and Pullman, to unpack some of the underlying concepts at play amongst the action.

"I brought in a lot of collaborators who can connect with that loneliness, and they're also some of the funniest people I know," said Schreier, who worked on Thunderbolts* with Beef writers Lee Sung Jin (aka Sonny Lee) and Joanna Calo, as well as editor Harry Yoon and production designer Grace Yun.

"I think we always felt like those two things could coexist, that you didn't have to sacrifice comedy or fun to address a sense of emptiness or darkness. Those were themes that we really explored on Beef," he added. "It seems odd to make a summer blockbuster that has those ideas in it, [but] it's not actually any smaller of an idea than anything else you would make a summer blockbuster about."

Schreier, John-Kamen, and Pullman also unpacked one of the best scenes in Thunderbolts*, a life-or-death "team-building exercise" in which Yelena, Bob, John, and Ghost (aka Ava) must shimmy back-to-back up a towering shaft — a scene Schreier said came from one of his earliest pitch meetings to Marvel.

"We always described it in shooting as probably maybe the least-dynamic action sequence in Marvel history, probably," he said.

"It's just such a juxtaposition of what Marvel is," said John-Kamen. "I mean, it's the only way we can get out."

Thunderbolts* is now showing in cinemas.