Thunderbolts* star related to character's mental health battle

Lewis Pullman (right) is still not sure if he is playing a hero or a villain in the latest Marvel movie Thunderbolts*.

- Sarah Bahr

NEW YORK—

“He’s very malleable and easily influenced because he hasn’t had a real, strong, reliable source of love in his life,” the American actor said of his character, a dark Superman-like figure known as Sentry/The Void—although his civilian name, Bob, is how you might remember him best.

Think what would happen if Superman were super-depressed. Also, Bob appears capable of vaporizing people with a flick of his hand.

“There’s a contrast between being this all-powerful being and then having your greatest weakness and your main Achilles’ heel be your own self,” Pullman, 32, said in a video call from his apartment in Los Angeles.

He had just returned to the city, where he was born and raised, after a shoot in Vancouver, Canada, for the Netflix movie Remarkably Bright Creatures, based on American author Shelby Van Pelt’s enormously popular 2022 novel.

Pullman—the son of 71-year-old American actor Bill Pullman (While You Were Sleeping, 1995; Independence Day, 1996)—is the breakout star of Thunderbolts*, which has attracted praise for its candid depiction of mental health.

“What I love about this film is that it is so adamantly trying to rid our society of the stigma around mental health,” Lewis Pullman said.