Exclusive Interview with Anthony Mackie (Falcon) from Captain America: Civil War

Have you seen Captain America: Civil War yet? If you haven’t, what are you waiting for? 🙂 But seriously, if you haven’t seen it yet, you can check out our Captain America: Civil War Movie review here. Just before Civil War hit theaters, we had the opportunity to sit down and chat exclusively with Anthony Mackie who plays Sam Wilson AKA Falcon in the film. Mackie, who has played this role since the second installment of the Captain America franchise, the Winter Soldier had many things to share with us and today we get to share his insight with you.

Exclusive Interview with Anthony Mackie (Falcon)
from Captain America: Civil War

Anthony Mackie (Falcon) joins the star-studded cast which includes Chris Evans (Captain America), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Sebastian Stan (Bucky/Winter Soldier), Don Cheadle (War Machine), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther), Paul Bettany (Vision), Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch), Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), Emily VanCamp (Agent 13), Frank Grillo (Crossbones), Martin Freeman (Everett K. Ross) with William Hurt (Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross) and Daniel Brühl (Zemo) in Captain America: Civil War.

For Captain America: Civil War, the filmmakers had to figure out which Avengers would side with Team Cap and which ones would ally with Team Iron Man. After careful consideration, the filmmakers decided to split the Avengers characters as followed. Sam Wilson, Bucky Barnes, Hawkeye, Ant-Man and Scarlet Witch would side with Captain America and Black Widow, War Machine, Vision, Spider-Man (new to the Avengers) and Black Panther would ally with Tony Stark (Iron Man). As you may already know, Falcon plays an integral role as Captain America’s friend and sidekick. So, which team would Mackie side with in real life? And his answer was “I am 100% #TeamIronMan, because I am old. I don’t want to think about it. I am all about chillin’ out.” Which I can totally relate to it.

Speaking of the Avengers, is there a specific Avenger that Anthony would love to work with or see in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies? Anthony’s response was, “I am all about the Hulk. So if I ever get a Falcon solo movie, I would love to have Mark Ruffalo play the Hulk in it.”

The Falcon uses mechanical wings to fly and in Civil War, Mackie’s Falcon suit got some special upgrades. His suit is now more high-tech and streamlined, not to mention, new flashy red on the wings. Which got us thinking, how complex is his suit and how it was filming in Atlanta Georgia in 90-degree heat? Mackie’s answer was, “my suit is very complex and I wear 6-layers of clothes. Because there are so many parts and aspects to the suit, I have my pants, my knee pads, my shoes, my calf covers, my shoe covers, my gloves, my both wristbands, body hardness, body armor, then the pack and I had to put on goggles. The heat of Atlanta, along with the complexity of our costumes are always challenging, but my thinking is. There are a lot worst jobs, I can be doing. Boo-hoo, it is 100 degrees out there, put me in my superhero costumes and let’s go! We love what we do, so we do it.”

And speaking of superhero costumes, does Mackie get to do many of his own stunts? In the stunt department, Mackie says that his stunts provide endless entertainment to members of the film crew. He stated that “I do all my stunts, very poorly. To the point, they call people to set. “Hey, Anthony is doing his stunts in about an hour.” So, people come to set just to laugh. Then, my stuntman is the best stuntman in the business. Literately, all you see, I do and everyone laughs and pat me on the back. Then he gets up there and does everything superbly.”

Everyone has real superheroes, which is Mackie’s real life superhero? He explained that growing up his Baseball coach gave all his players a booklet about Roberto Clemente, so Clemente and Martin Luther King Jr. are his real life superheroes. Finally, we had to ask about diversity in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, he stated that Marvel’s has done a remarkable job diversifying their portfolio. He went on to say, “just look at this movie for example and look at the movie poster. It is a very diverse cast.” Mackie also shared with us one of his proudest days, which was three years ago for Halloween when he had a white little boy show up at his door dressed as the Falcon. Mackie went on to say, “he didn’t see Falcon as a black superhero, he saw Falcon as a superhero.”  What an amazing interview it was and I want to thank Anthony Mackie for taking the time to speak with us about his role in Captain America: Civil War.

Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War – Trailer 2

Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War” finds Steve Rogers leading the newly formed team of Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity. But after another incident involving the Avengers results in collateral damage, political pressure mounts to install a system of accountability, headed by a governing body to oversee and direct the team. The new status quo fractures the Avengers, resulting in two camps—one led by Steve Rogers and his desire for the Avengers to remain free to defend humanity without government interference, and the other following Tony Stark’s surprising decision to support government oversight and accountability.

For more information visit:

• CAPTAIN AMERICA on Facebook
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• Or the official CAPTAIN AMERICA website.

Disclosure: I was provided with the information in this post by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. No compensation was received.