Variety’s Actors on Actors video series has given us a few gems in the past, but perhaps no interview has been as important as Marvel’s Anthony Mackie and Daveed Diggs’. In this recent chat, these two legends discussed diversity and representation within Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, both on and off the screen.
We spoke about this on today’s episode of It’s Been A Big Day For…
While you may know Anthony Mackie as the lead in Black Mirror’s ‘Striking Vipers,’ this actor is known to the MCU as Sam Wilson or Falcon. His first appearance came in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but since then he’s appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame as well as the upcoming Disney+ series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (where he plays the lead).
The conversation between these two started by discussing not only the Black Lives Matter movement but also the projects they’ve been involved in.
Daveed Diggs begins by asking Anthony Mackie “What are the ways that you find yourself interacting with the moment?” adding on “I find a lot of my interactions are just trying to make things better in the gigs I have in front of me… How can I affect different kinds of representation? What is the thing you feel compelled to do? What is your participation in this moment?”
To this, Anthony Mackie replied, “When The Falcon and the Winter Soldier comes out, I’m the lead for the show,… When Snowpiercer came out, you’re the lead of the show. We have the power and the ability to ask those questions.”
Anthony Mackie then went on to discuss his disappointment at Marvel’s representation off the screen saying, “It really bothered me that I’ve done seven Marvel movies now… every producer, every director, every stunt person, every costume designer, every PA, every single person has been white.”
Anthony Mackie continued, “We’ve had one Black producer; his name was Nate Moore… He produced Black Panther. But then when you do Black Panther, you have a Black director, Black producer, a Black costume designer, a Black stunt choreographer. And I’m like, that’s more racist than anything else because if you only can hire the Black people for the Black movie, are you saying they’re not good enough when you have a mostly white cast?”
Anthony Mackie finalised his point, saying: “So, my big push with Marvel is – you know – hire the best person for the job… Even if it means we’re going to get the best two women, we’re going to get the best two men… Fine. I’m cool with those numbers for the next 10 years. Because it starts to build a new generation of people who can put something on their résumé to get them other jobs.”
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