'Ant-Man' Director Peyton Reed Weighs in on Hannah John-Kamen's Ghost Joining the 'Thunderbolts' (Exclusive)

While Hannah John-Kamen's Ghost is not a character that appears in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, director Peyton Reed couldn't be more excited that he'll get to see her in the MCU again soon.

The character, whose real name is Ava Starr, was introduced as the antagonist of 2018's Ant-Man and the Wasp, which Reed also directed. Ultimately, it was revealed near the end of the film that she wasn't really a villain at all -- Ava had a painful condition that made her molecularly unstable and her battles with Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) were merely just her efforts to stay alive.

John-Kamen is set to reprise the character in Marvel's upcoming Thunderbolts, which will team her up with Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Wyatt Russell as John Walker/U.S. Agent and Olga Kurylenko as Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster. 

"I love it," Reed said of the casting. "Hannah is fantastic, and I love her in that role."

"And I love what we were doing in that movie, which is to sort of create not a villain, necessarily, but an antagonist who just was the result of this horrible accident and was sort of pulled into service as an assassin," he added.

John-Kamen's character will hopefully be a little more stabilized this time around, and Reed said he's looking forward to seeing where the Thunderbolts storyline takes her.

"We gave her sort of a redemption arc, and I love to see that she's going to live to fight, in one way or another, another day," he raved. "I'm stoked about that."

ET also recently spoke with David Harbour, who said he was super excited about the project, despite the fact that it's still in early stages.

"I really like what they've pitched me so far, even though I haven't seen the full script," Harbour shared. "I really love the relationship that I have with Florence's character, and I really like the idea that [Alexei is] going to be with the anti-Captain America in Wyatt Russell."

Harbour added that he thinks there's a lot of fun to be had" when it comes to the impending team-up, despite -- or perhaps because of -- the fact that nearly all of the Thunderbolts squad announced so far are former MCU big bads. "I'm really excited about it. I was wondering if I would be brought back, or how I would be brought back. And this really is beyond my expectations of cool."

"Thunderbolts is a group in the MCU that I've always kind of liked -- and Red Guardian isn't really a part of that in the comics," he added. "But I think they're kind of these cool losers, and I really think that if you're gonna have a team of losers, you know, gotta call David Harbour and put him in there."  

See more in the video below. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is in theaters now.

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