How retired Chris Evans told Anthony Mackie he was going to be the next Captain America

Passing the shield.In Anthony Mackie’s new cover story for Esquire, Chris Evans revealed he told his Marvel co-star that he was the next Captain America in the MCU.“I inadvertently was the one who got to tell him that he was going to be Captain America.I didn’t know that he didn’t know,” Evans, 43, said in the story published Thursday.Evans, who played Captain America in 11 MCU movies, explained that he surprised Mackie with the news at a gathering at his house during the filming of 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.”“I said, ‘Man, isn’t that scene so beautiful? I love it so much and I’m so happy for you,'” Evans recalled, referring to the moment in “Endgame” where the elderly Steve Rogers gives Mackie’s Sam Wilson Captain America’s shield.Evans said he ran upstairs, grabbed the “Endgame” script, and gave it to his co-star and friend.“I got to sit there and watch him read it,” Evans shared.

“And he was just so happy.”Mackie, for his part, shared his reaction to that moment with Evans in a recent interview with Fandago.“Being Black, I’m like ‘I’mma die, damn.They’re getting rid of me, man.

I don’t even cause no trouble.I stand in the back, like I don’t bother nobody,'” Mackie said, explaining that he thought the script was going to reveal Sam’s death.Mackie continued, “He gets the new script.

He goes to like the last 10 pages, and he goes, ‘Read it!’ So I’m thinking they killed me off… I get to the part and it’s like, you know, I’m reading the scene between us, and it goes, ‘He hands him the shield.’ I’m like, ‘So why did you give me the shield?’ He’s like, ‘Because you’re f–king Captain America.'”“We hug, we jump up and down,” the “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” star recalled.“It was hilarious.” Mackie is the first Black actor to play Captain America.

His role as the star-spangled hero begins with “Captain America: Brave New World,” which comes out in theate...