THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER
As the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues its small-screen expansion with THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER, Total Film sits down with stars Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan to talk superheroes, spin-offs and their competitive bromance.
Cap’s bickering BFFs head to the small screen.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe had been on something of an enforced hiatus after Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, with the ongoing pandemic putting a pause on any theatrical releases. That meant 2020 had no new Marvel movies, the first time we’ve been able to say that since 2009.
But even if the films scheduled for release this year also seem uncertain (at the time of press, there’s debate about whether Black Widow will open as planned on 7 May), the MCU is back in a big way on the small screen. WandaVision was appointment viewing, and that renewed obsession with the wider world of Marvel is set to continue with The Falcon And The Winter Soldier.
Digging deep into the two characters introduced in the earlier Captain America films, this six-parter is scheduled to be tonally in keeping with Sam ‘Falcon’ Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky ‘Winter Soldier’ Barnes’ (Sebastian Stan) previous big-screen adventures, featuring action, espionage and a familiar villain in the form of Daniel Brühl’s Baron Zemo, who was last seen in Captain America: Civil War.
Plot details are unsurprisingly shrouded in S.H.I.E.L.D. levels of secrecy, but we do know that the buddy duo – last seen together at Tony Stark’s funeral in Avengers: Endgame, after which the wrinkly Cap handed his star-spangled shield to Wilson – are in for “a global adventure that tests their abilities – and their patience.”
Total Film talked with the leads in January, shortly before the show’s Super Bowl trailer broke the record as the biggest ever debut for a streaming series, with 125m views in 24 hours. Via Zoom, Mackie dials in from New Orleans (“the best city in the world”), with Stan calling from Canada (“Canada is also wonderful, Anthony”).
Join us as we catch up with the wing-suited wonder and the army sergeant-turned-brainwashed assassin-turnedrecovering Avengers ally to find out about their on-screen relationship, off-screen competitiveness and what to expect from Marvel going ‘small’.
‘YOU COULDN’T FIND TWO PEOPLE WHO ARE MORE OPPOSITE THAN SEBASTIAN AND I’ ANTHONY MACKIE
Are Falcon and the Winter Soldier getting on well, or is there friction between them?
SEBASTIAN STAN: I guess it’s both, you know. It’s a friction and friendship and new discoveries and continuing the story. It’s all those things put into one, and so it’s also probably Marvel watching Anthony and I interact for the last four years and finally going, “Maybe those two should spend more time together…”
ANTHONY MACKIE: I think the great thing about the show is you couldn’t find two people who are more opposite than Sebastian and I. You could tell by the warm earth tones and art in my [Zoom] background and nice comfy sofa, and he’s in a brick dungeon somewhere [laughs], so...
SS: Hey – I can’t reveal where I am, man. People stalk me and stuff, you know, it’s like this in 2021.
AM: It’s 2021, man. Things are different now. He’s in his bunker doing a Zoom and I’m on my lovely, inviting tufted sofa, so…
What can you actually say about the story? How does it tie in with
and
WandaVision Loki?
AM: I think a simple answer to that is this show is a lot of Sebastian and I up to our antics and literally getting in trouble every day on set – and Kevin Feige having to come to set to punish us [laughs] for being overzealous with our characters.
SS: That’s true. Look, I think WandaVision is a really interesting, different show from Marvel and it’s tonally in its own world. I think we are also tonally in our own world in line with what the Captain America franchise movies have been – The Winter Soldier, Civil War – and so I think we follow a much more grounded, relatable approach. It’s a continuation of the story and we finally get enough time with these characters. We never got a chance to really fully understand where they come from and the ability to explore that in the tone of the movies, having the action and now more of the character, has been really nice.
From the trailers it looks like Falcon and the Winter Soldier have both boosted up their skill sets. What kind of training did you have to do to keep up?
SS: Well, I think the training was more in line with what we were doing before – but one of the things that I love about the show is that we finally have the time to give enough scenes and dialogue and backstory to really understand psychologically where these two characters are after the events of [Avengers:] Endgame. It really becomes a twohander very much in that world of Lethal Weapon. Actually, it particularly becomes much more like the first Lethal Weapon which was a lot darker if you remember. But you really get to find out what these guys are really about. You get why they need each other.
AM: When you have a 2 hour, 2½ hour movie you really can’t focus on character development for everyone who’s in the movie. You see it with WandaVision now how it has completely re-contextualised the idea of what a Marvel show or movie would be. I think this show is the exact same way. I think when you look at the depths of the characters and the visual aspect of it, I think what Marvel’s going to do is really define what we think is possible with television.
Marvel movies are normally big-screen spectacles. Do you think audiences will be able to enjoy the full impact of the show on phones or TVs?
AM: One thing Marvel’s always been great about is character development and story. There’s a reason why everybody cries when Iron Man had his demise in Endgame. It was very, very humbling because everyone had a relationship with that character. It was the reason why people were so heartbroken when Steve Rogers said he was just going to go live his life and turned over the shield, because everybody had a connection with that character. Marvel’s always been in depth and focused on story and the action is just a byproduct of the story. So with this, what they’ve been able to do and what I’ve really enjoyed seeing on my television is the fact that they didn’t play down the grandiose aspect of the Marvel universe. They didn’t play down the physical action aspect of it. They just put it in a way to where it works really well in your home as well as it would work on the big screen.
SS: Think about how people watch Avengers: Endgame once it comes out in iTunes. There’s so many ways to see things – on your phone, on your laptop, on Apple TV. When you’re watching this it won’t feel any different than when you’re watching Avengers: Endgame basically.
Do you miss the energy of the enormous superhero cast of
Endgame?
AM: No – the energy is still the same. The great thing that Marvel has been able to do is create a continuity, and that’s why the universe works so well project to project and you get to follow movie to movie and feel the same experience movie to movie – because there is that continuity from craft services all the way up to directors and producers. These are people we’ve spent the better part of seven and 10 years with so the feeling is the same, the tone is the same, the ability to craft our performances and show up is the same because if you look at Endgame or Infinity War or Civil War, all of us weren’t on set together at the same time. It’s always two or three actors, or one or two actors and a director doing it. At no point in time was there 700,000 people on set and we were all, you know, running to fight.
Before you started this project, what questions did you have? And what conversations did you have when you first reunited?
AM: It’s always the same. Look, Sebastian and I, Chris [Evans], Daniel [Brühl], all of us, we all talk outside of filming these shows and movies. It’s not like we disconnect when they yell cut and then we don’t see each other until we shoot again. So my questions were always about quality because my biggest fear was about quality, because we were going from the big screen to televisions and streaming, so usually that would mean a step down in quality because your budgets are smaller, you have more directors, different producers… But
after seeing it, there’s no one who could say that the quality of WandaVision was subpar to any Marvel movie. It was right along the lines if not better. I mean the performances that Paul Bettany and Lizzie Olsen gave, those were amazing performances, especially dealing with different genres and different periods, for you to be able to capture that and still engulf you within the world of Marvel, is pretty amazing. When you watch WandaVision, Lizzie and Paul set the gauntlet for acting on this stage of the Marvel Universe.
SS: What was nice about it is, Marvel called both of us up and said, “Look, we want to really get into these character’s pasts and we want to figure out where they are at psychologically and in the world now.” Captain America is gone, maybe for now, maybe not, whatever, so what’s going on with these guys, where are they at? And I think more the worry on my part was, it felt like we had to discover these new aspects of these characters and then honour what we have done so far, so it pays tribute to the history. But essentially there was a tone, there was a comedy here that we had to discover between us that we didn’t get to explore very much. But then there was also these serious aspects. Both of these guys are searching for their identity in a different way, and they have that in common but it completely sets them like two trains running into each other. So it’s about figuring out a way to work together and co-exist in this world and dealing with big themes that are actually going to be much more relatable to the 2020 year that we’ve had.
How was it filming during under the Covid-19 restrictions?
AM: It’s hard because our sets are very social sets. We are very social people when we are on set because it’s like a little social community, it’s like a little family. So filming during Covid was very difficult because you had to basically isolate yourself with everyone who you were working with, isolate yourself even from people you were working with. But at the same time, everyone on set was very strict about the idea of keeping our community safe. So we all kind of bonded and agreed on that.
SS: It was tough, we got tested every day… But we didn’t go back to work until they had everything planned out so that it was safe enough, and I just felt bad for Prague. I felt bad because the first time we got there in March we were there a week and we had to leave. And then when we got back to Prague, the whole city was shut down. So we never really got to experience Prague. Our show was full of locations. There’s very little green screen in our show.
Are there parallels between what happens in the show and what’s going on in the real world?
AM: There are definite parallels. Going back to Endgame, when the blip happened, billions of people disappeared. And now this show takes place after the blip, so billions of people reappear. So there’s this idea in the show and in society now, we are all trying to figure out where we fit in. And you see that not only in America, you see that around the world. It’s funny, because we did this show before everything happened in late 2019 and 2020, so the things that we were dealing with and the conflicts and stories that came across in the show are very present in our lives today, but we shot it before. So it was weird seeing these grandiose themes actually coming to life. It was a true example of life almost imitating art.
SS: I felt watching it that certain scenes were so impactful because of what we’ve experienced as a world [with Covid], but also what’s been happening in America in 2020. I feel like [the show] very much throws us into a world lacking leadership and direction. And coming from 2020, which to me seemed to lack any kind of direction, proper leadership, moral compass, sense of values… all those themes are just very much alive in this show. And I am playing a character [who] feels out of time and has to be educated and learn that certain things in how he grew up in [pre-war] America are not applicable any more.
Sebastian, there are weights in your background. How do you keep up with the physical demands of this show?
SS: I always feel pressure to like step up in a way physically and I never feel like I always get there. But it’s more about endurance than anything. It’s just more about keeping up. We had a lot of action sequences that were very much similar to The Winter Soldier, so it’s like a lot of the fight stuff that we were doing was very Bourne-esque, very grounded, very one-onone. I mean Anthony had a lot of other pieces because he can fly as well. But it’s just more about keeping up with the stunt guys, who are just relentless.
AM: I am a very competitive person. So when Sebastian shows up with his 28-inch waist, it makes me feel like I have to step it up a bit. So when I see him running, I go out and run. When he’s in the corner doing pushups, I do my pushups. So it was more of a competitive thing. When we were doing Civil War, we had to run through the airport over and over again fighting Spider-Man. I think it turned more into a race! What you see on film is us racing each other and not acting. [laughs] It’s one of those things where we push each other. There’s like a mutual respect, not only physically, but talent-wise. I think the reason these two characters work so well is because we always push each other.
Finally, what TV have you been watching to keep you going through the pandemic? Besides obviously...
WandaVision,
AM: I’m always watching the Discovery or History Channel. There’s this great show called The Men Who Built America. And if you want to understand the plight of America today, you should watch this show, because it shows how Oppenheimer, Rockefeller, Chase, all these families, rose to power and just literally became like forces of nature in America, so you can’t distribute wealth in a country where only six people were able to buy, sell, create and control all the wealth in the country.
SS: I was going to say I was just watching Planet Earth, I guess I got to step up, my God. [laughs] I thought the baby turtle getting from the sand to the water was enough. [laughs] But I am not on the train! [laughs]
THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER LAUNCHES ON DISNEY+ FROM 19 MARCH
‘BOTH OF THESE GUYS ARE SEARCHING FOR THEIR IDENTITY IN A DIFFERENT WAY’ SEBASTIAN STAN