In an interview with Men’sHealth, it’s been revealed that Captain America actor Anthony Mackie first auditioned for the role of Iron Man 3 villain The Mandarin. That audition directly led to him landing the Falcon role in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Mackie’s original Marvel audition was for Iron Man 3’s villainous Mandarin. That role went to Ben Kingsley, but his screen test led to a lunch with the company’s creative brokers, including Joe Russo and producer Nate Moore, about starring in Winter Soldier.
MACKIE: “He has charisma, but he also has the ability to convey integrity in a way that very few actors can. And there’s a level of trust between him and the audience.”
Still, because of Marvel’s Vatican-like atmosphere of secrecy, even among its employees, Mackie didn’t discover he was playing Falcon until about two months before production on Winter Soldier began.
MACKIE: “Growing up, I’d always loved Falcon, because he was a comic-book hero who was black who didn’t have ‘Black’ in the title. He stood on his morals. He stood on who he was.”
Also, mentioned in the article is that his upcoming Marvel Studios series Falcon and Winter Soldier for Disney+ is indeed shooting in Atlanta starting in October (previously announced by Sebastian Stan during a convention in Italy).
Mackie will be next seen as the lead in Netflix’s second season of the cyberpunk series Altered Carbon.
SOURCE: MEN’S HEALTH
