Global Courant
Marvel star Anthony Mackie has responded to the uncertain future of multiverse villain Kang the Conqueror, played by Jonathan Majors. In a new interview with Inverse, Mackie affirmed that he won’t buy into the allegations of abuse until there is more evidence.
“We’re a country that was built on ‘everyone is innocent until proven guilty,'” Mackie said in the interview. “That’s one of the staples of this country. Nothing has been proven about this dude. Nothing. So everyone is innocent until proven guilty. That’s all I can say. It’s crazy where we are as a society. But as a country, everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”
Majors was arrested in March on charges of strangulation, assault, and harassment. Police responded to a 911 call at an apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan, where the actor was involved in a domestic dispute with a 30-year-old woman inside the apartment. Since then, multiple alleged abuse victims have come forward.
Although Majors’ reps and lawyers deny the allegations against him, talent manager Entertainment 360 and PR firm The Lede Company dropped the actor following the news of his arrest. The US Army also pulled ads featuring the actor.
The domestic violence case against Majors, stemming from his March arrest, is set to go on trial this summer. Judge Rachel Pauley has set the next hearing for August 3.
Elsewhere in his interview with Inverse, Mackie recalled how he repeatedly contacted Marvel about playing Black Panther. “I had written them letters,” he said. “I was trying to find a way to make them make Black Panther. And I wanted to be Black Panther because growing up I fucking loved Black Panther.”
Mackie was eventually cast as Falcon, although he didn’t know it until after a meeting with Marvel producer Nate Moore and directors Joe and Anthony Russo.
“I’ll never forget, Joe Russo said, ‘Listen, so we’re doing this movie. We want you to be in it. We can’t say what character you’re playing or who else is going to be in it. Would you do it?’ And that was it,” Mackie remembered. “I was like, ‘You know what, I like y’all dudes. I’ll love it. I’ll go on this ride with you.'”
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The actor also discussed working with Harrison Ford, who is stepping in as Thunderbolt Ross in Captain America: Brave New World. Mackie had previously worked with Ford in Hollywood Homicide in 2003, but was still intimidated on the first day of shooting Captain America.
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“I was so fucking nervous I couldn’t remember my lines. He’s Harrison fucking Ford,” Mackie said. “There is this aura about him. But he dispels that really quickly because he’s such a cool guy. He’s everything a movie star should be. He would say, ‘Let’s shoot this piece of shit.’ And everybody was like, ‘Yeah, let’s shoot this shit.’ … We spent a good bit of time together. Ross and Cap have always had that relationship, where they were friends and they respected each other, but they always bumped heads. That’s their relationship in the storyline.”
Mackie recently took a break from the MCU to executive produce and star in the Peacock series Twisted Metal. He recently told Rolling Stone he took the gig because he was “looking for something different.”
