How ‘I’m Gonna Git You Sucka’ & ‘In Living Color’ Sparked ‘Captain America’ & ‘Twisted Metal’s Anthony Mackie: The Film That Lit My Fuse

From the moment he exploded onscreen mano a mano against Eminem in 8 Mile, Anthony Mackie has been on a steady course to a career peak where he will carry his first major Marvel film playing the title character in Captain America: Brave New World. He is also getting some awards buzz as star and executive producer of Twisted Metal, the madcap Peacock series adaptation of the Sony PlayStation game.

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After studying acting at Julliard, the New Orleans-raised Mackie got his start onstage understudying for future Marvel cohort Don Cheadle in the Suzan-Lori Parks play Topdog/Underdog. After 8 Mile, Mackie worked steadily in films from Clint Eastwood’s Best Picture Oscar winner Million Dollar Baby, Spike Lee’s She Hate Me, Kathryn Bigelow’s Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker, Half Nelson and We Are Marshall. He played Tupac Shakur in Notorious, Martin Luther King Jr. in the HBO drama All The Way, and returned to the stage for a trilogy of August Wilson plays, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences and Jitney. Along the way, Mackie joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe playing The Falcon in Captain America: Civil War and the Avengers films, and then assumed the mighty shield from Chris Evans for the Disney + series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. They’ve gone back to do reshoots on Captain America: Brave New World, and the film is due for release February 14. He also wrapped Desert Warrior, starring in one of the biggest films to shoot in Saudi Arabia. Watch here for the unexpected inspirations — Keenen Ivory Wayans was a big one — that led him to embrace the risks that have gotten him here.