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Following a successful landmark trip with “WandaVision,” Marvel Studios will let fans take a week-long hiatus before releasing their upcoming Disney Plus original series “The Falcon and the Winter Solider” on March 18.
Ahead of the debut, Marvel Creative Director Kevin Feige connected with Variety to discuss our reigning cover star Anthony Mackie, who ascends to leading male status in a way his Marvel character Sam Wilson (the titular Falcon) has never done before.
Feige teased the meaningful examination of what it would mean for a modern black man to take Captain America’s shield (which was handed to Mackie in “Avengers: Endgame”), the growing diversity of Marvel stories and creatives. behind them, and the most memorable moments working with Mackie across six films and, now, an original series.
What is your earliest memory of Anthony?
The first experience was that he was the unanimous first choice to play the character. He was just offered the role, I remember he didn’t audition. This has only happened a few times at Marvel. Mr. Mackie was one of those moments. I thought he would be great as a character. As we often do, when casting you pick the immediate role at hand – who Sam Wilson was in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” but if all goes well, there are many things that can grow and evolve. . You want an actor who can do it all, which of course Anthony can.
What’s interesting about a hero like Falcon is that he’s not an alien or a royal, but someone who represents the experience of black Americans.
Sam Wilson played by Mackie is different from a Thor or a Panther, in that he’s not a king of another planet or another one hundred percent. It still is the minute Captain America said, “On your left!” running around the mall in Washington DC
He’s a man, and he’s an African-American man. He has experience in the military, he has experience in bereavement counseling with soldiers with PTSD. This is how Steve Rogers initially developed this friendship with him. What’s great about the switch to the long version of Disney Plus is that we get to see a lot more of these characters. Mackie has this incredible presence, whether he’s onscreen for six seconds or six hours. In “Endgame” it was closer to six seconds. From the start we have asked ourselves: “Where did he grow up? Who is his family? We want to know more about this guy who was thrown into this situation and is handling it in a spectacular way given that he’s just a man. That’s what the show is all about. This man, this black man in particular, in the Marvel version of the world outside our window.
What has Anthony contributed to the growth of this character over time?
It’s good with a zinger, a moment of action, and is also incredibly poignant. What I find great, and no different from the best of our actors, is when they start to get as inspiring off-screen as they are on-screen. I think Mackie, in his press and on the set of this series, has become a leader that we turn to for advice in a number of ways.
I don’t think there’s been much talked, anecdotally, about the decision to give Sam Wilson the Captain America shield in “Endgame.” When did you decide and what was that day like on set?
The day we decided, we were in the boardroom – the one that feels like spending half of our life in Atlanta – deciphering history. The Shield had gone to a few people in the comics in the past, but four years ago it seemed like some of the great potentials of those storylines and the journey that Sam and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) had taken along the way. movies, it just seemed like he handed it over to Sam.
When we shot it, everything about those scenes was surprisingly moving and moving that day. We had done Tony Stark’s funeral, or his “wedding,” which was our code name. It was actually Mackie and Sebastian who proposed blocking the stage near the bench at the end of “Endgame”. They walk together towards Steve Rogers. As it was written, only Sam noticed this older gentleman sitting on a bench. They got the idea that they start walking together, and then Sam takes a step forward. Even the notion of him holding the shield and saying, “It feels like he belongs to someone else.”
It was really a wonderful convergence as we made the end of the Infinity Saga, Bob Iger told us what would become of Disney Plus. What had been a classic passing of the torch from one hero to another at the end of “Endgame” suddenly opened up our potential to tell a whole story about it. What does it really mean for someone to put themselves in their shoes? And not just someone, but a black man these days. That’s what Mackie and our head writer Malcom Spellman and we all didn’t want to hesitate.
With the loss of Chadwick Boseman, it feels like Anthony is the most prominent man of color in the Marvel Universe right now.
The repercussions of the loss of Chad are vast. Being honest in our storytelling is something Chad and Ryan Coogler, of course, always want us to lead the charge on, and that continues with Mackie and this series.
More and more in the movies, and certainly with Marvel’s Disney Plus slate, it feels like the MCU is opening up to D&I like it never has before. Is it by design or the progression of the storytelling?
I think it’s a combination. We’re lucky to have the comics to guide us. They have been relatively progressive over the decades for their time. The character lineup allows us that – we don’t make any of our full cloth characters, they’ve been in the comics for years – and we’re finally able to tell those stories. Looking at the remarkably positive experiences we’ve had, we’ve made sure that the room where this is happening isn’t a room filled with people who all look alike. When not, when there are people of different backgrounds and genders, the stories are better. Being in a company for 20 years and having released 23 films has always been “How do you keep things fresh and surprising on a story level?”
When you tell the story of a giant green lawyer [“She -Hulk], or a Muslim teenager with superpowers in Jersey City [“Ms. Marvel”], or working with filmmakers and writers of color as we are – it’s so ubiquitous and so much a part of who we are and what we do now, that it doesn’t feel out of place. It is no longer a title. A woman is running something! Wow! Hopefully this will become the norm as it is no longer a rarity.
What has been your experience of switching to the series, and do you think Marvel Studios can keep up with what the market thinks is a series release pace?
It’s been about three years now, and we’ve been lucky, with the shows we’re doing now. We have pretty much the same teams working on the Disney Plus series as we do on the movies. We’ve all been together for a very long time and there’s a shortcut to expectations. With television, there are only more pages to turn. The schedule is actually pretty much the same, for a big movie or a big show. You are just doing a lot more.
What will we learn about Sam Wilson / The Falcon in this project?
For us it was, let’s learn a lot more about Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes [Sebastian Stan]. We’ve seen quite a bit of Bucky’s history over the years, the horrors he’s been through. Sam Wilson, where is he from and what’s his backstory? What does that mean, especially in a post-blip world, and what is he going to do with that shield? I think there are a lot of expectations and assumptions about – you get an icon, you become that icon. Is it easy? Spoiler alert, this is not the case.
It’s widely said that you’re among the most vigilant in Hollywood to preserve theatrical releases, instead of letting the Marvel movies go to Disney Plus.
It’s impossible [not to be, when you] go to the opening night of 23 films, in crowded theaters, and see the reaction of moviegoers. That’s what motivates us creatively as we make it all, certainly culminating in “Avengers: Endgame” and “Far From Home”. There is nothing better than this and we don’t want to lose it. Hope we don’t have to. If there’s nowhere else to put these movies on, that’s another conversation, but I’m encouraged by theaters that hold up. Also, what is happening abroad in countries where [the pandemic] is no longer under control. Guess what? It’s human nature to want to come together and have an experience. This continues in a very important way in countries where they can.
Is there an indelible moment at Anthony Mackie’s workplace that will stay with you?
There are plenty of them, and they all speak of Mackie’s duality – a gigantic, boisterous personality who is also so thoughtful and articulate in quiet moments. We were in a place that I will not reveal, and there was a lake. There, Mackie was with a fishing rod, fishing about two feet from a “No Fishing” sign. This image just stuck with me.
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