Anthony Mackie Reveals What He Emailed to Marvel to Get Him Cast as Falcon

Marvel star Anthony Mackie is showing off his bulging biceps on the cover of Men’s Health magazine’s July/August 2019 issue, on newsstands July 2.

Here’s what the 40-year-old actor had to share with the mag…

On the future of Marvel resting on the shoulders of him and his peers: “It’s funny, because I feel like my friends are way more excited than I am, because I know the amount of work that has to go into it. They’re just excited to say that I have to buy drinks now. I but I definitely wouldn’t call it a burden. I would more so call it an opportunity.”

On being stunned when his name wasn’t listed among The Hurt Locker’s nine Oscar nominations: “That little f*ucker matters. We try to protect ourselves and say, ‘I’m doing the work for the work.’ But when that happened with Hurt Locker, it hurt. I had to take a year off of work.”

On emailing Marvel to try and get cast in a movie: “My line was, ‘Yo, I’m the black dude from The Hurt Locker. I would love to work with you guys.”

On his 2013 arrest for driving under the influence in Harlem: “It happened on 125th Street and Lenox – the epicenter of Harlem – with six white cops. I was like, Nah. This ain’t my city. It’s not my Harlem anymore. So I took the lesson: You’re not allowed to be a human being anymore. You’re not looked at or thought of as a citizen anymore.”

For more from Anthony, visit MensHealth.com.