‘Thunderbolts*’ director gets honest about creating grey characters

A superhero film is commonly about good guys, but not Thunderbolts*. It features a band of characters that falls into what may be called ‘grey areas.’

Jake Schreier, director behind the Marvel movie, explained the complex characters in an interview with Empire.

“You’re talking about a group of characters that have done a lot of bad things, and maybe are struggling with feeling good about themselves,” the filmmaker said.

However, the director noted, “There’s an element that does speak to mental health, and loneliness.”

“And how some of the darkness that we experience in our lives can’t be necessarily fixed, but can only really be made lighter through connection and finding others,” he shared.

As far as lessons are concerned, Jake said he learned from filming Thunderbolts* that “there are so many things that I didn’t know about before I started the film.”

He continued, “The biggest learning curve for me was the proportion of the action to the more emotional, character-driven scenes.”

The filmmaker noted, “And how, even though it’s more shooting days than I’ve ever had, they get eaten up quite quickly by the action stuff.”

“By the time we got to the end of it, it felt like, ‘Oh, now I feel like we get how to do this a little bit better,” he shared.

“(On Thunderbolts*) we’re in the middle of nowhere in Utah, in a gorgeous location, owning a road, and filming in 100-degree heat,” Jake added. 

“Or finding yourself on the second-tallest building in the world. These are very special experiences,” the director concluded.

Thunderbolts* is streaming on Disney+.