Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - MARVEL STARS: Anthony Mackie on Becoming Captain America and ‘Twisted Metal’

Episode Date: December 13, 2025

Known for his role as Sam Wilson, the latest Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Anthony Mackie is an acclaimed actor whose career spans films like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Million Dollar Baby and The Hurt Locker. In this sitdown from August 2025, Mackie joins Willie Geist to discuss starring in the second season of the series Twisted Metal, his rise from theater kid to Marvel superhero, and the moment the MCU came calling. Plus, he reflects on picking up the Captain America shield and the unexpected perks that come with playing a superhero. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. Got a great one for you today with Anthony Mackie. Of course, you know him as Captain America. He was initiated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Falcon, Sam Wilson's Falcon, back in 2014, and this year got his own movie. Captain America, Brave New World. You'll remember if you're a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2019,

19's Avengers Endgame, Chris Evans' Captain America, passed the shield to Anthony Mackie's new Captain America. He's had an incredible career, born and raised in New Orleans, not in a family of performers, although, of course, in New Orleans performances everywhere. He fell in love with acting from a very young age, went to a performing arts high school, and then auditioned for and was accepted to

and studied at the famed Juilliard School in New York City. first movie of his career, right out of the gate, eight mile. Remember, he played Papa Doc, kind of the rival to Eminem in the movie. There's a great story in here about that famous rap battle scene between Eminem and Anthony Mackie's character. Stay tuned for that. It's incredible. He went on to a bunch of supporting roles in Oscar-winning movies, Million Dollar Baby, The Hurt Locker. He was in the Adjustment Bureau, underrated Matt Damon movie, great flick there, before joining the Marvel cinematic universe. Most recently, he's been nominated for two Emmys. He, great guest appearance. If you watch the studio on Apple TV Plus, a primetime Emmy nomination for that. And he was part of a last

year's documentary, Shark Beach. He got nominated for an Emmy for that, daytime Emmy as well. He's been very busy. His very latest is a new season of the hit Peacock series, Twisted Metal. If you've seen it, You know it's based on a famous video game from like 25, 30 years ago called Twisted Metal. He plays John Doe, a delivery driver suffering from amnesia in a post-apocalyptic United States. How is that for a character description? The show is wild. It's insane and very popular on Peacock. I should point out, we got together at a place in New York City called Coexist Gamehouse.

It's like you go in this door somewhere, I think it's on 38th Street. And it's just old school video games, new video games. You can play at the old arcade setup, or you can have, like, the wall on the TV like you're playing at home. It's just this club for gaming. So he and I sat down in between us is the street fighter video game. Remember the old kind? They'd have it like a pizza hut where each person sits at each side of it. It's kind of like a table with a video game in the middle.

Just to give you a visual, we're kind of in the basement of this video game place in New York City sitting at a game table. A first for me and a first for Anthony. So sit back now, relax, and enjoy a Sunday sit-down conversation with Anthony Mackey. Anthony, thanks for doing this, man. Oh, what's up, man? Appreciate it. I was just saying this is definitely the first time I've ever done an interview at a gaming console. I assume it's yours, too.

But I will say I've always wanted one of these. Yeah. But the problem is, because invariably, they will break. getting them fixed is the hard part. Because how many people you know know how to take this apart and put it back together. Yeah, these are 30, 35 years old. Yeah. That technician's not around anymore.

That dude is in Boca, chilling out. We got street fighter in front of us. I remember the Pac-Man Miss Pac-Man thing from when we were young. That table were four people could sit around. That's the one. I mean, that one, I have blown many of Saturdays with my kids playing four-person Pac-Man. And the trash that kids talk, you know, it's personal, man. And, like, kids don't understand the boundaries of trash talking.

Right. You know? And it's just, you can't. I always tell my boys, I'm like, you can't talk trash and play Miss Pac-Man. Like, that don't go, you know, that don't go hand in hands, you know? No, you're not hardcore. You're trash talking, Ms. Pac-Man. You're not a Miss Pac-Man thugs.

Stop it. Well, we should explain why we're here in this fascinating, cool, downstairs of a New York building. Downstairs in a video game place. This is Willie's basement. He invited me over. We're chilling out. A little nostalgia going on. Bring everybody down here on a Saturday night.

I appreciate you having me over. Got the DJ booth, the whole thing. You're crazy on the weekends, right? We're here because your latest project, season two of Twisted Metal, is coming out right now based on the famous video game that came out in 95, I think it was, and was so popular for the next decade or so. So I've got to ask you where we've found. find John Doe as we move from season one to season two, where are we in the story for fans?

Well, if you remember from the end of season one, John Doe was in an interesting position. He delivered the package that Raven asked for and he was let into New San Francisco. Now, the problem was he was let in and quiet wasn't. So he finds himself in New San Francisco and not altogether happy with the situation that is now his reality. So, you know, John Doe is a free spirit. He's a nomad. He's a roamer. So he's trying to figure out, you know, what his next step is to being happy.

Because most people, when they go into the cities inside the walls, they don't come out. You know, that's the dream land. That's the promise land. So we start to see what the real world is inside the walls. And John Doe deciding if that's for him or not. And that's where we find him at the beginning of season two. So for people who have not seen the show, it is fun. Everybody saw the show.

Well, yeah. It was a huge hit. The small handful of people living under a rock for the last couple of years. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. Maybe they're on a darkness retreat or something. The show is funny and violent and it's wild. I think it's insane.

It's watching the first episode of season two. Boy, you pick right up on that as we enter this tournament. Right. kind of same energy, but even elevate it a little bit. Well, yeah, we wanted to make season two bigger. And, you know, what we were able to do, which I'm really proud of, is bringing new characters and introduce them into this tournament. You know, and, you know, from the video game, Calypso, he's the big worker of magic things.

And, you know, he grants everybody an opportunity to join this tournament where you play till the death is the only way out. And if you win, you win your one sacred wish. Whatever that wish might be, he's going to grant that wish. So everybody who enters the tournament, you know, has the potential of winning this wish. So you meet a plethora of characters and all of them are so different, but so well scripted and made whole by the actors by how, you know, everybody brings something different to these characters. And it's so fun. Like we bring back Sweet Tooth. So, you know, some more Joe's there, still beating people up and throwing me around.

And it's just, you know, you have all the, like this, this different atmosphere in this second season with new characters, but always that same amount of comedy and gore. There's some running man in there. There's some hunger games. It's got all these cool elements to it, the competition of it. See, you might be. I think we're around the same. I'm an old head. So I'm an unk, as they call me now. My son calls me an unk. You're good? Constantly. It calls me unks. So I have a little respect. Right. One of my favorite movies as a kid was

Cannonball Run. Oh, yeah. And this movie, you know, it reminds me of that in a lot of ways. All of those characters and just the ridiculous nature of all of the cars and all of the people in that movie is kind of like this show. So when you first heard Anthony going back now to the inception of the show when you guys started to develop it. You heard about this idea. We're going to base a series on a video game. What was your initial reaction to that? I was specifically this video game.

I was excited by it because there was never really a story for twisted metal. Like you would click into the game and it was just a bunch of weird characters shooting at each other. You didn't know why. You didn't know where they were from. You didn't know. All you knew was the cars they were driving and what their powers were. and what they looked like. You saw their driver's license.

That was it. So we had the pleasure and the ability to design this world around these characters however we wanted. So we created these stories and every season of the game was a different backdrop. Every time the game was re-released, it was a different level or a different backdrop. So with us, every season is a different area, a different look, a different feel because that's how it was with the game. Other than that, we just came up with the story ourselves. There's something going on with video games too. The Minecraft movie was huge. Super Mario Brothers was huge. This show has blown up. There's that sort of like, it's almost like

the borders of media have been blurred and you kind of take something people love and give it it a play. Well, no. You have a generation of kids who bully their parents and make them give them money to go to the movies. Like, you know, we have to understand the power of, and a nostalgic nature of entertainment. You know, when I was a kid, I got my first kiss at the movie theater. You know, like, we used to sneak off after school not to do bad stuff.

We used to go to the movie theater and hang out with our friends who lived on the other side of town. You know, so it was always that communal meeting place. It was always that place where people, kids could get together and feel safe, you know. And with this show and with all of these movies and shows that are based on video games,

It's, you know, something that you can do as a family unit. You know, I took my kids to go see last movie we saw with Sonic the Hedgehog. Yeah, that's right. You know, Jim, it's Jim Carrey. I go to see Jim Carrey. They go to see Sonic the Hedgehog, you know? So it kind of, it works out that way that it gives us something we can do together. You're a very busy actor and father and all the things you do with all the Captain America and the Marvel universe of it all.

I have to imagine you, at this point, just by nature of time, you have to be careful with what you pick and say, I really want to do this. I want to invest my time and effort. So this must have been one of those. It definitely was. And, you know, as a parent, always say you're trying to find ways to impress your kids. You know, because nobody else matters. If my kids like it, I'm the golden goose, you know? So something like this with twisted metal is so funny because my kids, get to see me be silly. You know, they get to see me have fun. They get to see me in a way that they don't normally see me in day-to-day life because I'm the stern dad, you know, do your homework, go to bed, you know. But with this, they get to see me more in a joke and matter. So, you know, they love the show.

And season one, my son got to play Little Me. So, you know, being able to bring them into the fold and show them the business and show them me at work, it was pretty cool. And I was, you know, every part of this show has kind of been a building mechanism for me to try and be cool to my kids. Well, it sounds like you've got some work to do on that. Talking to you earlier, you're like, they're not into my stuff. No. They're literally.

I'm like, yo, turn on the TV, turn on the TV, go to Nat Geo. Your dad's in the water swimming with sharks. They're like, we have a soccer game. Look, I'm in the water with sharks. They could care less. You're like, I did this for you. I did this for you. Risk my life.

Even Captain America can't bring them around? I mean, gosh. You know, they... I will say, I will say, I remember the moment when my youngest got it. So my oldest three, they don't really care. You know, I'm dad, you know? Let's like hang out. Let's make pizza, you know?

So we went to go see Sonic the Hedgehog. And I didn't know. the Captain America trailer was playing in front of Sonic. So, you know, you bring your kids. I have, like, just $100 of shit. You know, it's popcorn and, like, sour worms. I don't even know what it is. Like, just shit, right?

And my son has this thing where he gets, you have to pay a dollar for an extra little thing of cheese. Oh. Now, this makes me mad. Yeah. Okay. A dollar for an extra little thing of cheese. He has to have four of them because he eats his popcorn.

by dipping it in the cheese. Now your cheesy fingers are in the popcorn. Oh. I don't want those soggy popcorn with your... So now I got to buy another popcorn. But now the other one wants raisinets because he likes the chocolate on his popcorn. So he opens the raisinets.

Why the popcorn's hot? Put the raisinets in there. So now you got sticky chocolate. I don't want any... So now I got to buy... Willie, there's a thousand piece articles of food in front of us, right? So it's it, man. I look up.

I hear my voice. I look up. and it's the Captain America trailer in front of Sonic the Hedgehog. So I'm like, oh shit. So I look at them and they're all face deep. Right?

So I'm like, hey, man. Hey, hey, this trailer crazy, man. What is this? Not one of them look up. Come on. One of them. So I look at my 16-year-old and I'm like, yo, look at the screen.

He goes, all right, Dad. Look up. So the eight-year-old looks up. And he goes, huh, right back to the popcorn. That's all you got. That's all I got. Wow. I got the, huh.

I mean, your dad is a superhero on the screen and you won't look up from the raisinets. They can care less. And you know what I had to do midway the movie? Go get more popcorn. Come on. Oh. Wow. That's why you just have to get the large because it's free refill.

Right. But not if he's throwing raisinettes in it. You got to get more raisinettes. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. It gets expensive. Four boys, man. I never knew sour worms was so expensive.

I'm like, oh, they got to have coupons or something. It's not easy to be the dad to four dudes. It's hard, man. It's hard. The dude talk is hard. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Anthony Mackey right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Anthony Mackey.

We were talking a minute ago about your, growing up in New Orleans. And what a great city that is. Just thinking about your boys and what it was like for you to be young and sort of early on to have this performance bug, it seems like. But as you've said, there's no one in your family really in that world. You didn't come from that. No. So how was that sparked in you? You know, it's funny. It was ironically enough second grade. Is this the puppet show? There's the puppet show. I was in a, I was in a, I was an inquisitive kid. And if you give an inquisitive kid a puppet,

like you give me a task. And I'm like, oh, I can do this task. Yeah. So arts and crafts, you know, you blow up a balloon. You take flower, water, and newspaper, wrap it around a balloon. Pop the balloon, and all of a sudden, you have, like, a hard, like, skull. You paint it, you, you put the ears on it. You have a person, dude.

Look at you. Look at that. Give me a task. Wow. I am a task master. So that was my first job. It was Walts and Matilda. I was the lead.

I was Matilda. And crushed it, standing ovation, three performances. Wow. It was second grade, third, fourth, and fifth, standing ovation, every class. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, three performers. Only three nights.

That's it. Limited run. Limited run. Second grade puppet shows rarely get standing ovation. Man, limit. I still. remember like when I did my little puppet bow and everybody went, Matilda, Matilda!

A star is born. A star is. You're up there getting encore. I'm going to like it. We were about to do a fourth performance. I mean, tickets. They had to add an under date. They were in high demand, man.

I'm telling you. I crushed it. So that's second grade. A lot of people have those performances, but then you really start to get serious. You know, you go to Performing Arts High School in New Orleans. It seems like from a pretty young age, you were locked in and focused, like, this is going to be my life. Well, I knew, I never knew, it was different because I never thought of this side of it. Like, I never thought of the film and, like, celebrity side of it.

Because we're talking about 1985. Yeah. You know, it was like we had a wood, we didn't have cable. Put it that way. Forget the internet. We didn't have cable. So the idea of being famous was something that was far off or being a TV actor, you know, was something that's far off in another, you know, world.

You know, I just wanted, I loved acting. And I knew it. My junior year of high school, we did King Lear at my high school, right? And my friend Tristan played Edgar and I played Edmund, the bastard son of Kloster, right? So at the end of the play, Edmund and Edgar face off. this big sword battle. And you should not give 16-year-old's real metal swords. Well, they were real?

They were real, right? So we're like, ching, ching. And everybody's like, oh, just crazy, right? So at the end of it, Tristan runs me through, right? And I'm like, oh! And like three girls in the audience jump up and go, I'm gonna be an actor. And that was it.

That was the moment. I'll never let petite theater, which is now tablo restaurant, downtown New Orleans. That was the moment I knew I wanted to be in that. Wow, you can pinpoint the moment. That was the moment. You look at those girls and you're like, it was literally, I was, Anthony!

Wow, I'm good at this. And was your family encouraging of it? Your dad runs a roofing company named Willie also, which I love. Yeah, yeah. And they were behind it the whole way. 100%. My family was really remarkable just because, of their humble beginnings.

I mean, my grandfather was a sharecropper, so my dad had to drop out of school in eighth grade to work with my grandfather. You know, he wasn't allowed to finish school. And my mom, and she graduated from a Negro appointed high school. So for them, it was very important, education was very important. It was very important that whatever you decided you wanted to be,

you had to go to college for it. And, you know, it was just very important that their kids focus on being the best of whatever it is you wanted to be. So it was, it wasn't so much that I wanted to be an actor. It was, it was more so that I, you know, even if I was focusing on English or being a teacher or being a nurse or whatever, you know, it was just learning it and mastering it so that when you go into that field, you can be as creative and as open and explorative as you wanted to be and whatever you chose to be. Because they weren't giving those opportunities.

I love that. They saw the passion you had and said, let's go. There was a lot of passions. I mean, my mom was at the end of the, like, you only got about two more passions, boys, so you better make them count. You know, so it was a silent, I was a passionate kid. It was a run of passions. You know, I thought I was going to be a professional fisherman.

I remember growing up, and this was a huge kid. My entire life, I wanted to be a paleontologist. Oh. Yeah. that my whole life. Like, I used to go in the backyard, and my dad would get so mad. My dad would chase me around the yard.

I would just dig holes all around the yard. I'm like, there had to be dinosaurs in New Orleans, right? Dinosaurs got to eat crawfish. There got to be dinosaurs. I like oysters. I don't know. They got to be dinosaurs. So I would dig up my...

Oh, it was bad. Oh, your dad hated that. And my dad, you know, if you know one thing about an old black man, he proud his grass. So if he could come in the yard and he just find a hole, I mean, a trench. And I'm standing in a trench and I'm standing in a trench. I mean, I would do.

So I thought I was going to be a, you know, a paleontologist. But that didn't work out. Right, right. I don't even know where paleontology school is. You know, that when I was like, I'm going to be Indiana Jones. Archaeop. You know, that didn't work. So there was a lot of them, dude.

It was a long line. That was one passion they were happy. See, go. Let's focus on the acting. No more paleontology. It was a long line. And then you get into and go to Juilliard. Yeah.

right here up a few blocks from where we're sitting right now. Yeah. And you graduate out into the world of theater in New York City. Yeah. Was that a thrilling time for you? I've got this Juilliard degree. Let's see where it takes me. Or scary?

It was, I'll say, and this might be my, you know, idiot mind speaking, but I've never, I was never afraid. Because to me, I just, I wanted to, like, do plays at the Guthrie. I wanted to work at, you know, on the old Vict. I wanted to, you know, go up to Poughkeepsie and do a play. I loved acting. I wanted to be a working actor. So this idea of, you know, everything else was always foreign to me.

Like, my brother always laughed because I was like, yo, if I could make $200 a week, I'm good. Like, if I pay my taxes, I get two roommates that's, you know, $1,500 for a three-bed room that leave me through. I'm good. Like, that's how my math worked living in New York. York at the time. And it was so funny getting out of school, like the sky was the limit. Yeah. You know, I always wanted to be able to create and evolve as an actor. That's why I always stayed on the stage. That's why it was so important for me to not only see theater, but be a part of the theater community, to have those conversations and be a part of those conversations.

So working at the public theater, that was a huge platform for me starting my career. You know, all the theater companies here in New York that I work with, you know, second stage and, you know, New York Theater Workshop and all those companies that gave me those early roles big or small. You know, they were huge opportunities for me to find myself and my ability as an actor. Because coming out of Juilliard, the great thing about Juilliard was this. Juilliard did not teach you a technique. It wasn't Meisner. It wasn't, you know, Edith Skinner or anything like that. It was more so the idea of creating a technique from yourself, finding your strengths, building

off your strengths from the light that's within you and evolving the character from that. And, you know, we had some amazing teachers that really deconstructed the idea of what acting was and built it back on top of us. So by the time we were in our fourth year, our third year, you know, we're a bunch of stupid, broke college students. My friend wrote this play about Tupac called Up Against the Win. And we did it at school for no money. You know, my friend Rosie directed it. Her husband, Jonathan did the music.

I built the sets. Like we just, we did a play. Three performances. Never go to the four. Only three. Right? So this weekend, we do the play. and it was a school production about Tupac at Juilliard.

So everybody came. And Jim Nicola from New York Theater Workshop came to see the play. And he was like, I want to bring this off Broadway. And it was crazy to me because, like, I begged to do that play. I begged to play that role. When we first was doing the readings, I was biggie. And I'll tell you this, you might not believe it. I was a great biggie.

I got rave reviews. on my biggie. Anybody will tell you. I got rave reviews. Rave reviews, okay? And so the guy who was playing Tupac graduated, so I got bumped into Tupac. And from that,

went to New York Theater Workshop. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm off Broadway. Like, I'm making $350 a week. I'm rich, you know? Like, I can get a bigger apartment, right? And Molly Finn, God rest of so, amazing cast and director, came to see the play and introduced me to Curtis Hanson.

Curtis Hanson was doing 8 Mile at the time. And the biggest question in the New York Times and everywhere else was, how do these Juilliard kids know so much about hip-hop? That was the big, they're literally living section New York Times. These Juilliard kids are doing a hip-hop play. Wow. Come on.

Come on, man. So that was, you know, the rest was history, The idea of acting the formative ability to construct a character was something that was always interesting to me. And Juilliard really played a vital part in that because the teachers were so just giving. And, you know, we had so little, but we made so much from so little

that even now my classmates and I look back on that time and we realize how lucky we were. Yeah, you always look back finally, even when you've reached your success, right, about how it began. Yeah, because when you're in it is hell on earth. Right. But once you get past it and look back at it, it's ironic how that little moment, that little win, you know, that little step constructs so much in your future. Yeah. You know, and I always tell my kids and their friends, everybody just needs a win.

like one moment where you see an obstacle and you beat that obstacle. And a win always begets a win. And there's so many kids out here today who just don't get wins. You know, every time they have to take an L. And that L is so hard that it just beat you and beat you and beat you. And I look at it, you know, theater for me was that first win. You know, I think back to Walt and Matilda and that those, brave review. The kindergarten, look, the elementary school newspaper said I was quite possibly the

best actor to come through that second grade drama program. Wow. I still have the new, the elementary school newspaper. And they're famously tough critics. So that was good. Yo, if you see the dude who was the play critic at my elementary school, he looked like in your classes. He had a recede in hair line in sixth grade. I'm serious. Like he used to wet, And I used to hate him because he used to wear these little vests, like the Argyl vest. I'm like going to beat you up. He was a tough critic, dude. He was ready to rip you.

He would review the marching band. Really? Oh, it was crazy. Wow. He would review the cafeteria. Oh, oh, dude with, oh. Oh, man. He's running at an annoying website now.

100%. Right? Where he just... 100. I'm sure he gives me a dirty, with 12 followers. He gives me a dirty review every movie I do. Of course. Stick around for more of my conversation with Anthony Mackey right after a quick break.

Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Anthony Mackey. Well, what's so great about what you're saying is you have these theater dreams. And then within a few months, Curtis Hanson says, hey, what about Hollywood? So you're happy with where you are. You're doing the Tupac off-Broadway. Brings you in, I think you auditioned for the part that ultimately went to Mackay Fifer. Right, right? But you get this role of Papa Doc that is so.

memorable. Right. Right. And what an experience for a young actor to be on that set with Eminem, of course, but those other great actors. And under Curtis Hansen, it's your first movie. The first movie. And the funny thing about it was, Papa Doc was only like four lines. I was only supposed to be there for like a week. And Curtis kept adding stuff and building the character to where 90% of what you see in the movie wasn't never there. Like, I was, I wasn't, I was in the first scene in a rap battle. Like, that was it. And the rap battle wasn't even shown.

It was just talked about in a script. Like, if you read the original script, it's crazy. It's crazy how different that movie turned down. No rap battles. Yeah. It shows you how great of a director Curtis Hansen was. Yeah. So for me, it was all about, you know, being able to be around Curtis and learn from

Curtis watching him direct. And, you know, the way he controlled a set and navigated the performances of the different actors, it was, because all of us were kids, right? man, you look at Omar Benson Miller, you look at Eugene Burr, you look at all those, like we were, Evan, we were all kids. We were excited about predium. Like, I remember when we first found out that the money they gave us at the beginning of the week was to eat and get housing. Like, so this is free. Yeah, this does not count against my money.

No. You were suspicious. What's the catch, right? I remember when we first learned what per die. them was, you know? So it was, it was just one of those jobs where a bunch of people who had no idea what they were doing came together and found something like magical. You know, we kind of like lit a match at the right moment. And Eminem just happened to be one of the most talented people of our generation, but also a hard worker. Like, you know, to think he was doing his album, he was

doing the music for the movie, he was starring in the movie, but also producing. I mean, he just bust his ass every single day. And because of that, we all became like this little busher ass crew, you know? And it just worked out. The final rap battle scene in particular is one. Now, I'll tell you this. Now, see, I had a big argument about the final rap battle. You did.

Oh, I had the illest rap ever written. Like if I would, I had the, I wrote the best rap ever for this battle rap. Okay? Because I was telling Curtis, I was like, look, I should go first, he should go second, and it'd be a tie. And then we have the battle, because you've got to see me go at him. You got to see Papa Dot roast him once, right? He comes back and it's a tie. That's when for the finale, for the finale, he goes first, and I ain't got nothing else to say because he come at me too hard.

Ah, raise the stakes. He said no. You lost that battle. He said no. I'm going to see, oh, I got to look and see if I still got the rhyme. As I was hard. It was hard. He couldn't have, it would have been dismantlement.

Would it change the trajectory of the movie? A whole different movie. Whole different movie. It would have been called Cranbrooks Finer. I love to that Eminem planted a few little nuggets in there about you, you said. Well, what pissed me? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Yes, yes. So what made me matter? So I did go to private school, right? When I was in school, I got in some trouble. I was fed up with New Orleans. I said, enough is enough. And I got my way into private school. And I went to Borden School in North Carolina because I had that opportunity. But if you ever have the chance, go to Detroit, Michigan and drive to Cranbrook. That is not. in high school. That is a full-fledged five-star university campus. So I was like, dude, there's so many private schools in Michigan, why you got to pick that one? Like, that was a dig. That was a specific

Michigan dig in a way. Only people from Michigan can get that line. Right. Because if you've never seen Cranbrook, you just think, oh, it's a bunch of nerds, blah, blah, blah. No, no, these ain't nerds. These are nerds. Yeah. Like, I'm, I'm in the yacht. club. Right. Fancy nerd. Yeah, 17-year-old with boat shoes. That's what it is. The ultimate insult in Michigan. You're a 16-year-old and you know what Panchetta is. That's what it is. That's what it is. That's what he did. That's why I was like, yo, we ain't acting. I'm about to fight him and him. No 16-year-old should know what Panchetta is. Hey, come on, man. Come on. What's your favorite cheese? Bree. No, get out of here. Kiss my a-h-ha-ha-ha. Oh, God.

We'll only have a few minutes left, so I won't make you walk through your whole IMDB page. But obviously, that led to a lot of great things for a million-dollar baby in the Hurt Locker and on and on and on. And then in 2014 comes the Marvel universe, which I didn't realize until I was reading up on you, that you had sort of been talking behind the scenes about Black Panther. I knew at some point in time they had to do Black Panther. And, you know, Black Panther was always a phenomenal. comic character. And when it came around,

I just wanted them to know and put my hat in the race for the fact that when Black Panther came around, the black dude from Herd Locker wanted to do it, you know? And it was funny because so reach out to them several times and ask for the opportunity

to just audition. So get a call back and they're like, look, we want to meet with you about something. So I'm like, oh, this is it. So they fly me to L.A. And it's a very L.A. setting.

We go to this little hotel, like a boutique hotel, swimming pool in the middle. It's all white. Like, they're the old ladies sitting there with like the mirrors like this, like lobster boobs, right? And we're sitting at this table outside.

It's hot as hell, right? And everybody has on shades. I'm from New Orleans. I'm like, I don't have shades. I need to buy shades, right? So Anthony and Joe Rue. Rousseau are at the table and the executive producer Nate Moore is at the table. So I look at them and, you know, they already look like mafia dudes. Like, you know, Joe Rousseau's, you know,

he's like, it's like, you ever saw Goodfellows? Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's Joe Pesci, right? So, and, and, Anthony Rousseau, he's the quiet one. I think he maybe said two words in the whole meeting. One of them was hello and one of was thanks. That's it, right? But the whole time he's looking at me like this. And I can see his eyes under his shades. I'm like, shit, right? So Joe's talking, Nate's laughing at Joe. And I'm like, I don't know how to play this.

Like, I'm from New Orleans. Should I order a beer? Like, oh, I should drink water. Oh, you have apple juice. No, we don't have apple juice. Damn, apple juice is always a safe bet. Right. Right.

So I'm like, I'll have water. They asked me the biggest question of my life. Still or sparkling? from New Orleans. I don't know what sparkling water is. I was like, give me sparkling water. It sounds fancy. Dude, I took a drink of the sparkling water.

My throat was on fire. Like my mouth's dry. And they're like, so what do you think? I'm like, and Joe goes, wow, you seem really excited. I'm like, oh. So he's like, we have a movie. We have a character.

We'd like you to play. We can't tell you the movie. We can't tell you the character. but if you're interested, you know, we would like to have you in our movie. So now I'm stone cold dry because I'm drinking sparkling water for the first time in my life. And I'm like, well, okay, okay, so shake my hands. Anthony Russo don't do nothing. He goes, thanks.

Oh, like, this dude is a murderer. Why are you so angry with all these lobster women around, right? So shake their hands. I leave and the next week get offered the role of Sam Wilson, which I never considered to be brought into the Captain America fold. Right. You know, because there hadn't been a character like that that was brought into another character's film series. You know, it's always been Spider-Man.

Right. It's always been Iron Man. Right. Like, it's always been that boom, boom, boom, boom. So to bring in a secondary character was a huge moment in the Marvel universe. Yeah. And, you know, I think Sam Wilson deserved that. Stan Lee said Sam Wilson, of all the characters he wrote Sam Wilson deserve that because of who he was and what he represented in the comic book.

So it was a proud moment. I'm very happy that it was Sam Wilson because he was such a great character. Sam Wilson, Falcon, Captain America, ultimately. Right. Can you speak to, Anthony, what it's been like to be in the middle of the biggest movie franchise and the history of movie franchises, what it's meant to professionally, but also personally, to be this well-known now around the world and not just as an actor, but as a superhero in the eyes of somebody who sees you walking down the street. What does that feel like? You know, it's interesting. Like every blessing is a curse, right?

And when you think of the theater kid from New Orleans who found something that he fell in love with and wanted to follow that and experience that and live in that comfort of what he loved, it's very different than being looked upon as the celebrity in this pop culture time that we live in and the idea of not only having, having a target on you for being, you know, a role or a character I recognize, but have a target

on you for many different reasons, for many different people in many different ways. And not all those targets are good targets. So it's been, it's been interesting. It's been interesting. But like I said, the biggest thing for me is just, you know, I get to, like, brag to my kids. you know, I get to show my kids, you know, my kid got to meet Thor, you know what I mean? I gave me like 10 coupons. Right, right. You know, so it's just, that's the biggest thing for me. It's like dad first and superhero second.

And at some point in time, I hope my kids consider me enough of a superhero as a dad that it matches the way people look at me as a superhero for Marvel. That's well said. That's well said. It feels like, too, you've done a good job by being in New Orleans of maybe quieting some of the hysteria that would be around you if you're in L.A. Yeah, yeah, New Orleans, nobody don't care. I mean, they really, like, I don't even get, like, free appetizers at restaurants. You know, it's like, if you go to a restaurant here and a famous person walk in,

they're like, oh, man, Willie, come on here. Your meal is on me. Thanks for coming. Take a picture and put it on the wall, right? Right? Here's every dessert. Here's every dessert, Anthony. Right?

That never happens for me. And I know all the people who are on the restaurants and they still make me pay. Like there's no, the biggest thing, this is the biggest thing. I got a free fishing charter after my movie came out. Oh. I went back home, movie came out. Dude was like, I would be honored to take you fishing. You don't have to pay for the charter.

Free day of fishing? let's go all day was worth all that work that's it 25 years of work for a free fishing charter i will take it uh well congratulations on this new season on all your success thank you that was great appreciate it that's fun my big thanks again to anthony for a great conversation you can see twisted metal streaming now in its second season on peacock and my thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of these conversations with our guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC to see these interviews with your own two eyes. I'm Willie Geist.

We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.