Captain America is a moral authority in the films of Marvel. He stands for good, even when he has to confront former friends. The newest Captain America is Anthony Mackie. In an interview, the actor spoke about success, and he sounds nothing like his character.
What does Anthony Mackie say? In the interview on The Privot Podcast (via YouTube), Anthony Mackie spoke about his career and the path to Hollywood. The topic of success also came up, and that you don’t always get ahead just by hard work.
In the podcast, the actor even proposes the thesis: We lie to our children
with the idea that one can achieve everything solely through their own efforts.
Anthony Mackie talks about his experiences
How does Anthony Mackie come to this conclusion? In the podcast, they talk about his role as Captain America and what weight it carries. Mackie discusses his experiences with people who have risen from a small position. However, he also reaches an unusual conclusion:
We lie to our children, and I believe that this is a big problem in our society […] We tell our children that if they do the right things […], they will be successful.
Anthony Mackie on success (Source: YouTube)If you work hard enough, your work will pay off, and that is not true. True success is given to you; you don’t have to earn it.
He explains how he did many acting programs before his career and was also on Broadway. Mackie makes it clear that no matter how good and brilliant you are, if no one picks you, it doesn’t matter. Additionally, they later talk about how as a nobody
, one has to be twice as good at everything as others.
To get his role in the MCU, Anthony Mackie claims he fought quite hard. In 2023, he explained to Inverse that he wrote countless letters to Marvel to become Black Panther. Through his efforts, he secured a meeting with Joe and Anthony Russo, the directors of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
The two wanted him for the role of Sam Wilson in the movie, and that changed his career.
What did Anthony Mackie do before Marvel? Long before his role as Sam Wilson, Anthony Mackie was active in the acting business. His first role was in the film 8 Mile in 2002, which tells the story of the rapper Eminem.
After that, he had smaller roles, including in:
- Million Dollar Baby (2004)
- Real Steel (2011)
- Gangster Squad (2013)
- Pain and Gain (2013)
Most recently, Anthony Mackie could be heard in the original version of The Electric State. Here, Joe and Anthony Russo also direct. In the film, Mackie voices a robot. From March 14, 2025, you can watch the sci-fi film on Netflix: In less than 2 weeks, the probably most expensive Netflix film of all time is coming – The sci-fi spectacle cost 320 million dollars and must not be a flop
