Anthony Mackie Was Originally "Mortified" About MCU's Disney+ Move

The actors of the Marvel Cinematic Universe know enough to give lectures on their characters, but they're not always privy to how projects will go down. When Anthony Mackie found out that Sam Wilson--also known as the Falcon and the new Captain America--was headed for Disney+, he was "mortified," the actor said in a new interview with Variety.

"I was very afraid and very disappointed when I heard it was going to be a TV show because I didn't think we could take the scope of what we had just done in all these movies and then put it on TV and it would work," Mackie said, comparing the shift to putting the characters out to pasture. "I didn't want to be the first failed entity of Marvel."

For a long time, the classic Batman television show and movie from the late 1960s were the gold standard for what superheroes on TV would look like. Batman comics were campy back then, and the show was campy in equal measure. That was, however, over half a century ago, and it's unclear why that was his first reference point when Marvel and DC alike have upped their game with shows like Daredevil, Jessica Jones, HBO's Watchmen, and DC's Legends of Tomorrow in recent years.

"I thought it was going to be like Batman and Robin--the original one--where it was like 'Pow! Bing!'" Mackie said.

Things changed, of course, once the show was in production.

"When you become part of the Marvel franchise, it's almost like summer camp. So when you show up to set, it's everybody and you never miss a beat. Some people have kids, some people bought a car...it's like going back to seeing all your same friends over and over."

The interview, which covers a variety of topics related to released and upcoming MCU Disney+ series, featured Mackie and Falcon and the Winter Soldier co-star Sebastian Stan, WandaVision's Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, and Loki's Tom Hiddleston who says in the interview that he held a lecture on Loki that involved a whiteboard. The whole interview is close to 45 minutes and worth checking out on Variety.