Now the old warhorse is the U.S. president.
Danny Ramirez (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Top Gun: Maverick) is the new Falcon.
So, along with going over scripts and stuff, thats another thing that we bonded on.
Anthony MackieMassimo Insabato/Archivio Massimo Insabato/Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images
[Ford] was a carpenter right before he was acting.
So wed always have the weirdest conversations.
It was the weirdest sh*t, he bellows.
Anthony Mackie in ‘Captain America: Brave New World’Marvel / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
And Harrison goes, So what kind of router bits are you using?
Eventually, Mackie showed Ford photos of his tool shed with his drills and bits.
Thats the way he described it to me.
He was like, Being on this set and working with you guys is kind of like a family.
You guys are a unit.
Thats refreshing to me.
After that, it just became easy peasy.
The two stars often went out for dinner after a days filming.
We bonded in a way of just two human beings that had similar interests.
Hes an outdoor guy.
Im an outdoor guy, Mackie says.
Theyd actually worked together before, in 2003 onHollywood Homicide.
I had a small role that got cut down to a smaller role, Mackie remembers.
I played a guy, a little criminal who got killed, and he played a police officer.
He was like [imitating Ford], Oh, you were the guy in the car?
You play a good dead guy.
He was like, Dont talk about that movie!
He wasnt Harrison Ford.
He was one of the actors in the movie.
Ford, says Mackie, was keen on the idea of being in a Marvel movie.
And he goes [imitating the Ford growl again], Well, I wanna have fun.
They shot in Atlanta for just over four and a half months.
Then with the strike, they were set back with the release of the movie.
Once the strike was over, they went back for reshoots.
Mackie reasons that all these movies get reshoots.
Marvel, he tells me, really put every resource on the table to make this movie work.
Its going to be a full slate.
He doesnt yet know how many of the Avengers will reunite for the two blockbusters.
I dont know how many are coming back.
RDJ [ Robert Downey Jr.] made the big announcement that hes coming back.
Im excited to be able to go to work with him, go toe to toe with him.
Im the OG now.
Im the only guy, he chuckles.
Im the Avenger from the old group that brings in the new group.
So itll be a changing of the guard.
So I have to figure out whos going to be the new Avengers.
Thats the perk of being Captain America.
I get to pick who I want to hang out with, he says with a satisfied grin.
That role will be played by Jamie Dornan, with whom Mackie starred in the movieSynchronic.
When Skogland showed Mackie the12 12 12project, he suggested they go after Dornan.
Captain America berates the unbending politicians, telling them: Im a Black man carrying the Stars and Stripes.
The actor insists, Hes the best version of all of us.
Millions and millions of people saw him do that.
I would argue that not just anyone can effortlessly play these roles in these superhero movies.
Also, the emotion of the character was just as important as the physicality of the stunt scenes.
Mackie began preparing for this moment more than two decades ago.
Ivanov taught clown movement, circus skills.
How does clowning around link up with playing a superhero, I ask him?
Not everybody can throw a punch.
Not everybody can look natural in these movements.
So you got to have body control and form to be able to move through that.
And a lot of that comes with body training and a focused movement.
They hadnt had stunt training, he adds dryly.
It was a proper punch on my nose, he adds.
I delicately inquire whether she broke it.
No, but there was blood.
She hadnt had the proper training, he laments.
Was that part of a plan to sharpen his physicality for acting?
Laughing, he shakes his head.
No, I wanted to meet girls.
That was just simple and plain, my man.
It was a school full of ballerinas.
Christopher Walken was a chorus boy before he became Chris Walken, he says.
All that dancin around helped give Mackie the tools to play the hero that isCaptain America.
Mackie praises David Warren, his stunt double, lauding his physical ability as being second to none.
He knows my body so well that when they choreograph the fights, he knows what I can do.
Im just awful with kicks, he confesses.
Hes always there with me watching me.
He gives me more direction than the director when were doing those fight scenes, he adds.
I mean, Chris Evans was the face, just like Robert Downey Jr. was the face of Marvel.
Did he think that because hes Black?
No, it was never the idea of me being Black that was in question or the hindrance.
Ive worked my entire career being Black, he says with a hearty laugh.
I know, man, when I wake up every day Im …, he jokes.
When he met Kathryn Bigelow forThe Hurt Locker,it was about a smaller role.
When they met again he pitched her the idea of him playing the thoroughly professional Sgt.
Sanborn, the bomb disposal team leader.
But Sanborn was written for a white dude, he says.
The white dude has to watch the back of this Black dude.
No, theyre picking em all off.
So it is about brotherhood as opposed to race.
Once he pitched that to Bigelow, she got it.
Morgan Freemans role was written for a white guy thats why his name was Red.
Like, Tim Robbins asked him, Why did they call you Red?
He goes, Because Im Irish.
That was written for a white dude.
And Morgan said, Dont change nothing.
Leave it exactly the way it is.
If you dont believe Im Irish, thats a problem with you, not with the script.
When Freeman told him that, Mackie went, Holy sh*t, dude!
Thats the way I want my career to be perceived and looked at.
Thats the way I want my roles to be.
If nothing else, its a good script … Thats a Black dude!
he says with a guffaw that echoes around the London hotels courtyard garden.
Stan Lee told me when I first got the role that he wanted a character that represented Black culture.
So at that time, Black exploitation was very big.
So he basically wrote his idea of a Black exploitation character like a Shaft or somebody like that.
Mackies brother was hugely into comic books when they were growing up in New Orleans.
However, the actor tells me he never read em because he was deeply into cartoons.
But my brother would read comic books all day, every day.
Even now, I make my boys watchTom and Jerry.
I bought all these DVDs.
Im like, Yall got to watch.
You got to know whoTom and Jerryare.
I was the lead in the play and got a standing ovation.
I was like, I want to be an actor, this is great.
I want to do puppet plays forever!
From fourth grade onwards, Mackie was to enroll in many theater programs.
His eyes light up.
They had these huge cannons on stage and people jumping and swinging off the stage.
And I was like, Holy sh*t, this is amazing!
And thats where the acting bug really took hold.
He enrolled into a summer session at the North Carolina School of the Arts.
Later he did his senior year there, and when he graduated won a place at Juilliard.
As a kid, he loved watching Don Cheadle inThe Golden GirlsspinoffThe Golden Palace.
Another time, we did a similar Shakespeare thing in L.A.
New Orleans is a very segregated city.
And he was struck by their viewpoint of the world around them.
When I first readKing Learit blew my mind, Mackie recalls.
I read everything I could, everything.
I would just sit there, it was my Bible.
He began to understand how knowledge of Shakespeare and other classic playwrights can relate to contemporary situations.
And that was the thing, it wasnt foreign at all, he exclaims.
Those dramatists, he notes, were dealing with issues that were still dealing with today.
Not much has changed except cell phones and computers, Mackie says.
His dream is to perform a play in the London stage, although not a classic.
Its like there are only so many times you could playHamlet.
I want to do something different and something creative and timely to now, he declares.
We throw some names around, then look glumly at each other.
All of the good playwrights are now writing on four Netflix shows and two Apple shows, he grouses.
But Id like to find a young playwright in London, thats the challenge, he says.
Lets hope that he pulls it off.
