Anthony Mackie on Impact of a Black Captain America: ‘World Has Changed So Much’

Anthony Mackie is taking up the shield in “Captain America: Brave New World”! 

“Extra’s” Roqui Theus spoke with Anthony at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada to dish on the movie and how lucky he is to be living his wildest childhood dreams. 

He said, “Thinking about it… all the things that I dreamed about as a kid and all the things I wanted to achieve and all the things that I admired as a kid… I have a great experience of being able to live those things and see those things come to fruition, so I know the extreme amount of lucky I am, and that’s why I try to enjoy it every day.”

Anthony had a special moment seeing his action figure, saying, “This is hilarious.”

While holding his action figure, Mackie reflected on everyone who helped get him to this point, with a special shout-out for his teachers! 

He said, “I’ve been very fortunate, and I realized that, like, I have a great family. I had great parents, but I also had great teachers. I realized 50% of my life I spent with my teachers, so they were just as big influence on me as my parents and my siblings.”

He continued, “I would like to dedicate this to my teachers, everybody in New Orleans public school when I wasn’t the best of kids that looked out for me and believed in me and kept me honest to who I was. You know, it’s 100% because of them that I’m sitting here with this little plastic version of myself.”

Anthony opened up about how “huge” it is to be giving audiences a Black Captain America.

He noted, “It’s so funny looking at how different our realities are, from our kids and from our parents. I look at my sons and they’re playing in the backyard, it look like a little crayon box. I’m like, it’s so many different colors of kids running around the backyard. When I was a kid, my reality wasn’t like that. So, the world has changed so much in one generation, and I’m so proud to say that my kids have the ability to see a world that’s so completely open, and the opportunity is there for them to be whoever they wanna be. I love that.”

“It’s very important that little brown kids are gonna look up and see a brown Captain America, but it’s very important that other kids are gonna look up and see a brown Captain America,” Mackie stressed.

He recalled, “When I was a kid, my favorite superhero was Incredible Hulk and Superman, and at no point in time when I was a kid watching Superman I was like, ‘No, I can’t be Superman because he’s white.’ It was the decency, it was the humanity, it was the character that made me want to be Christopher Reeves… It was the human that he was, not the outside look of what he was. And I think, for me, that’s what’s really important about this.”

Anthony also raved about his co-star Harrison Ford, saying, “Harrison is the man… I remember I used to flick through all 12 channels before we had cable and like once a year, ‘Star Wars’ would come on… Harrison had such a huge [impact]. I wanted to be an archaeologist because of ‘Indiana Jones.’ I would go in the backyard and dig for hours, hoping I would find something, like there had to be dinosaurs in New Orleans. There had to be!”

He added, “Having worked with him and having him someone I now consider a friend is a huge milestone in my career, and having been able to be on the boards with him and develop this character and this story as a producer, it was huge. The moment was not lost on me.”