Anthony Mackie Breaks Down His Career, from 'Avengers: Endgame' to '8 Mile'

I think a lot of the reason why,

like, there's so many videos

and so many people talking about me having fun on set

and the whole thing about me laughing and joking

is because I'm very lucky to do what I love.

[relaxed rhythmic music]

Hello, I'm Anthony Mackie,

and this is the timeline of my career.

Who goes first?

Let that [bleep] go first.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

I can't believe my ears!

All the hostility!

I was at Juilliard and my friend,

Michael Develle Winn, was writing a play

called Up Against the Wind,

and the play was about Tupac.

I played Tupac, it was amazing,

we did it at Juilliard, crushed it.

Jim Nicola from New York Theater Workshop

came to see the play, said, This is great.

I wanna move this off Broadway.

So he takes it, my senior year at Juilliard,

we do Up Against the Wind at New York Theater Workshop,

massive hit, we're on the cover of The New York Times.

It was amazing.

Everybody was like, Oh my God.

How are these Juilliard kids

doing something so contemporary?

So [laughs]

this wonderful lady named Molly Finn saw the play,

she introduced me to Curtis Hanson who directed 8 Mile,

and I auditioned for Mekhi Phifer's part,

but Mekhi Phifer is really famous,

and I was a guy who had just done a play,

so Curtis called me and was like,

Yo, not to be rude, there's a smaller role in the movie

with four lines, I want you to play this role.

I'm like, Bet.

So I go to Detroit, we start 8 Mile,

and I got to hang out with Eminem for three months.

It was amazing.

I was, [laughs] I was 21 year old.

I was only supposed to be there for a short period of time.

As the shoot evolved, Curtis started developing

my character, changing my character, adding more scenes,

so Papa Doc went from, like,

two scenes to a integral part in the story of 8 Mile.

So you see a group of guys in our early 20s,

honestly becoming lifelong friends on screen

before your eyes, and that's why the movie worked so well.

I mean, everybody who was in 8 Mile,

they're still my friends, and that was 20 years ago.

That you decided to start experimenting

with your sexual orientation while our wedding invitations

were in the mail. John Henry.

To both our family.

Well, She Hate Me was interesting,

because I did a movie with Spike before She Hate Me

called Sucker Free City, which, as an actor,

you know when you've done good work,

and I felt like, you know, Sucker Free City

was some of the finest work I've done as an actor.

It was supposed to be developed and grow

into this amazing series, like Showtimes answer

for HBO's The Wire.

We crushed that project.

Absolutely, I don't care what nobody say.

We crushed that project.

And from that, Spike offered She Hate Me

to Jeffrey Wright, and Jeffrey Wright said, No!

And I was there at the day Jeffrey said no.

And I was like, Damn, that's messed up, man!

Jeffrey don't wanna work with you!

We work real well together. [laughs]

So two days later he calls and offers me She Hate Me,

and it was a huge learning experience.

I've never seen anybody with the drive, the focus,

the passion that Spike Lee has.

And that was the first time me seeing

somebody really appreciating the love for what we do.

The appreciation, the desire to be able to show up

everyday and do it to the highest of their ability.

You know, Spike was the first one there everyday,

and he was the last one to leave everyday.

And I just, I had never, you know,

I had never seen that before.

Him being Spike aside.

Just his desire and his work ethic

kinda has fueled me for the past 15 years.

I mean, how do you do it, you know?

Take the risk?

The Hurt Locker was interesting in many different ways,

because I was in North Carolina doing another movie

that subsequently never came out.

I was in LA before I started in North Carolina,

and Katheryn and Mark Boal

and Greg Shapiro, who produced it,

the four of us had a meeting,

and they wanted me to play the other role,

and they had already cast Jeremy,

and it took us seven months to shoot this movie

in North Carolina.

That project went over two months,

so I'm begging them like, Please hold on.

Please, like, please just wait.

I'ma finish this on this date.

And they're like, No, we gotta go.

We gotta go.

We gotta go.

We're sorry.

They offered it to another actor, and he said no.

Then they came back and they said,

Look, if you can leave on this day, we can do it.

So I wrapped that project that night, drove to the airport,

got on a airplane, and went to Amman, Jordan the next day.

The greatest experience of my career is that dude saying no.

I was very excited to have the opportunity

to work with Jeremy, so when I met with Kathryn,

you know, she wanted me to play a smaller role,

and my thing was, war has no race.

War has no face.

War has no name.

War has no sex.

War has death.

So let me play the best character I can play.

So that was the perspective on which we talked,

and she gave me the opportunity to play Stanborn.

And, you know, it was interesting,

because I had known Kathryn's work for a long time.

I loved her movies.

I loved her style.

I loved everything about her career that I had experienced,

so I wanted to be a part of that.

And I tend to work better with female directors.

Just a great experience for me every single time.

And what Kathryn was able to do with the three of us,

you know, Brian Geraghty, Jeremy Renner, and myself,

it was amazing.

I mean, we were in the belly of the beast.

We shot that three miles away from the Iraqi border,

when it was not cool for people to go to Iraq.

This was 2007.

If anybody tells you that they thought

The Hurt Locker was gonna be an award winning film

on the day we wrap, they're lying to you.

No one knew what that movie was gonna be.

Nobody expected that movie to blow up the way it did.

It was a very hard shoot.

It was a very difficult two and half months.

You know, when we got nominated,

you know, 'cause I was with Jeremy,

like, on whatever morning show that was [chuckles]

when we got nominated.

And then when we were at the Oscars,

like, George Clooney was right there.

All these people were right there, you know?

Like Halle Berry. [sighs]

So it was crazy, right?

So, you know, when we won I turn to Brian,

'cause Brian and I were sitting way in the back.

So I turn to Brian, I'm like, Yo, we going on stage.

He goes, We can't go on stage.

No one goes on stage.

I was like, We're going on stage.

So they're like, We won.

So I grab Brian, and we're running up,

and Barry's sitting there, the DP, so I grabbed Barry,

and we're running up, so all of us rush to the stage,

and I turn around, and it's Tom Hanks!

And I'm like, Fuh, Tom Hanks, you weren't in the movie!

What are you doing [laughs] here!

So there's a video of me like hugging and kissing Tom Hanks,

and him being like, What are you doing, kid?

And it was, nobody expected that.

It was crazy.

I got to kiss Tom Hanks.

Sam Wilson.

Steve Rogers.

I gotta put that together.

Must've freaked you out coming home

after the whole defrosting thing.

It takes some getting used to.

I had no experience with comics whatsoever.

I didn't read comic books.

Comic books weren't my thing.

My brother had crates and crates of comic books,

and he used to beat me up,

because I would rip his comic books up, and that was it.

So when I found out about the Falcon,

when I got the opportunity to meet

with Joe and Anthony Russo and Nate Moore

at some random, weird hotel in LA by the pool,

eating Cobb salad,

which who knew what Cobb salad was at that time.

[laughs] It was a great experience.

That's when you know you made it.

When somebody buys you a chopped salad.

I'm like, So you're gonna bring a salad,

and I gotta chop it up myself?

I'm paying you to chop up my salad.

Why do I have to chop my own salad?

Anyway, so that's, you know, rich people stuff.

When I started in this business I told my agent at the time

I wanted to do a Western,

because I grew up loving Clint Eastwood

and all of his Westerns and Gunsmoke and Silverado.

And I wanted to be a superhero.

Those are my two things.

Other than that it's free game.

And then I was very upset

because Morgan Freeman took my role in Unforgiven.

That should've been me.

But I'ma get my Western with Clint Eastwood.

But it was monumental.

The Falcon has been my Oscar.

I feel like there are few rewards

that could justify a career, a body of work,

the way Marvel has entrusted with me this character.

Not just for the African American community,

but just the veteran community in general.

I think what that character represents not only to Marvel

but to America is very important,

and I'm very honored to play that role.

You know, if you want, I could come with you.

You're a good man, Sam.

The Russo's are quite brilliant in the way they handle

the Marvel franchise, and, specifically,

the Captain America storyline.

You show up for two days, you shoot one scene.

'Cause I wasn't in much of either of the movies,

but you show up for one day, and you shoot a scene.

You show up for a week, you shoot a scene.

You go in and you do ADR and you record a line,

you have no idea where it's gonna fit

and how it's gonna work.

But they take all this footage

and make this amazing story, you know?

And the first time I saw the movie

I didn't know how it was gonna play out.

So the last scene in Avengers: Endgame,

I'm at the theater with my son,

and the movie ends, and my son goes, Dad?

I'm like, What's up?

He goes, Are, are you,

are you Captain America?

I said, I think so! [laughs]

He goes,

Cool.

I'm like, That's it?

Like, that, that's all I, that's all I get?!

Like, you should be, fine, cool, cool.

You don't cry, I don't cry.

I'm not gonna cry.

So he's just like.

So nothing.

So all night we're hanging out, they get tired,

take him home, put him to bed.

A week later he calls me balling,

and he's like, Dad, you're Captain America.

I was like, Yeah, dude.

So he's like, I just, I didn't know.

That's so amazing.

I'm so proud of you.

So then I start crying.

And I'm like, You're proud of me!?

He's like, I'm proud!

I be like, I'm proud of you, buddy! [wails] [laughs]

But that's, you know, it's funny,

as a parent you do so much,

and all you want is the approval of your kids.

Like, nobody else matters.

Like, I don't care what anybody else on the internet says.

My son said it was cool, so it's cool, you know?

And that's been the biggest thing with Marvel

and all of these movies, you know,

you realize, you know, it's an opportunity

for you to spend time with your kids.

Like, every Marvel premiere I get to take my son,

and we sit, and we eat popcorn, and we watch the movie,

you know, and we talk about it afterwards,

and, you know, he says his favorite part,

and I say my favorite part,

and that kind of what this character has become.

It's been a way for my sons and I to bond over movies.

Think about all the good we can do for the community.

Taking it to the man.

That's exactly what we're gonna do.

[Samuel laughs]

When we were shooting The Adjustment Bureau,

we were on the top of 30 Rock

shooting the scene with Matt and Emily,

and Joel, who's Nolfi's editing partner,

comes up to me and starts telling me this amazing story.

I was like, he was working on doing the movie,

and he was, you know,

I told him anything he could do I wanted to be a part of.

It was an amazing story, and it should be told.

Here we are 10 years later.

We got it done, and we were able to make it.

I did a movie called Gangster Squad

where I played a cop from the valley side of LA,

and he used to police a club called Club Alabam.

Club Alabam was owned by the character who Samuel L. Jackson

plays in The Banker.

That's my window, like, if you have a movie 1950s, 1960s,

I'm your black guy.

I just, I kill that window.

I don't know about everything else,

but that, [laughs] those two decades, that's my window.

Sam has been a presence in my life, and a mentor,

and a voice in my head for the past 12 years.

It's phenomenal, but intimidating and scary

when you get to sit across from someone you admire so much.

So about the third day of shooting I realized

every time I talked to him I called him Samuel L. Jackson.

[laughs] On like the third or fourth of shooting

I was like, Yo, Samuel L Jackson, you want some coffee?

[laughs] He goes,

Stop saying my whole name, mother [beep].

Then I went, Oh Jesus.

I pissed off Samuel L. Jackson.

Wait, stop calling him Samuel L. Jackson. [laughs]

It was amazing.

[intense music]

I can't do this anymore.

This wild goose chase across the stars, running after you.

Altered Carbon: Season 2 I play the character

of Takeshi Kovacs.

Last season it was Joel Kinnaman,

and I'm taking over for the second season.

I think it would solve a lot problems with people,

'cause everybody wants to be somebody else.

Everybody wants to be the person they see online.

Everybody wants to be the person

who gets invited to the stuff,

or look like the thing with the thing.

I think it would solve a lot of problems

if we could just zap people into what they wanna be.

Me in Vancouver is like reading Dante's Inferno,

and I don't know which layer of hell I was in,

but I'm pretty sure I experience all seven.

It's the first place I've shot

where we had to have bear wranglers,

'cause there're bears everywhere,

and I guess the local people aren't afraid of bears.

Skiing is a deathtrap in Vancouver,

because they actually have mountains,

so if you're going skiing and you see a big sign

that says slow, that means you've hit the point

where you can die.

I learned that when I learned what a mogul was.

We don't have moguls on the East Coast.

If you saw a dude falling down the mountain like that,

that was me, over every mogul that was out there.

It was a very cold, long, rainy six months

running from bears.

For me, the philosophy that goes into selecting a role

is more about humanity than anything else.

I think because I have a theater background

I really look for a three-dimensional character.

Someone that has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

And someone who just seems like a real person.