Ahead of his film debut as the character in Captain America: Brave New World, Anthony Mackie has revealed that his predecessor Chris Evans was the one to tell him he was taking on the mantle – showing him an early version of the script for Avengers: Endgame.
In the 2019 Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Evans’ character Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, arrives having grown old after going back in time to live with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). Mackie’s character, Sam Wilson, who had fought beside him as the hero Falcon, is handed Rogers’ famous shield.
The exchange saw Wilson become the new Captain America. The character has assumed this role in the series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but Brave New World will be his first big screen appearance.
Speaking to Fandango ahead of the film’s release on February 14, he said: “It was a bunch of us at (Chris Evans’) house—he had this crazy house—sitting there watching a game, shooting the shit. He goes, ‘Have you read the new script?’ I said, ‘Nah’.”
Mackie confessed he feared the worst. “Being Black” he explained, “I’m like ‘I’mma die, damn. They’re getting rid of me, man. I don’t even cause no trouble. I stand in the back, like I don’t bother nobody’.” The truth, however, was far from what he suspected.
“He gets the new script”, he recalls. “He goes to like the last 10 pages, and he goes, ‘read it!’ So I’m thinking they killed me off… I get to the part and it’s like, you know, I’m reading the scene between us, and it goes, ‘He hands him the shield.’ I’m like, ‘so why did you give me the shield?’ He’s like, ‘because you’re fucking Captain America’.”
He then says of the reaction: “We hug, we jump up and down… It was hilarious”. The actor, who has also appeared in The Hurt Locker and TV series Black Mirror, said it was Evans’ enthusiasm that gave him confidence for the future. “His excitement for me becoming Captain America let me know that he knew I could handle it” he said.
While Evans handed over the mantle, that doesn’t mean that he won’t be part of the MCU anymore. Reports have surfaced that he will join Robert Downey Jr in the planned blockbuster Avengers: Doomsday, having already appeared as his Fantastic Four character Johnny Storm in Deadpool & Wolverine.
Footage of Mackie’s Brave New World co-star, Harrison Ford, transforming into his character Red Hulk was also recently unveiled.