Anthony Mackie

Anthony Mackie (born September 23, 1978, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.) is an American actor best known for playing the character Sam Wilson/the Falcon in multiple films and television series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He will star as Captain America in the upcoming film Captain America: Brave New World, set to be released in 2025.

Childhood and education

Mackie is the youngest of six children of Willie Mackie, Sr., who owned his own roofing company, and Martha (née Gordon) Mackie. Beginning at age 13, Anthony Mackie would help out at his father’s company during summer breaks. Already set on a career in the arts, he began high school at the preprofessional New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. His mother died unexpectedly when he was 15 years old, and several teachers suggested that a change of scenery would help him get through his grief. Mackie ended up spending his senior year in the high-school drama program at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, in Winston-Salem, from which he graduated in 1997. He then attended the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City (B.A., 2001).

First roles on stage and screen

Mackie began his acting career on stage in New York City. He was recognized with an Obie Award for his role in the cast of Carl Hancock Rux’s play Talk in 2002. That year he had his first feature film part, in 8 Mile, playing rapper Papa Doc, a rival to star Eminem’s character, Jimmy Smith, Jr. Mackie, an ardent fan of hip-hop, wrote his own rap lyrics for Papa Doc’s scenes. He made his Broadway debut with a small role in the revival of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in 2003 and appeared in Regina Taylor’s Drowning Crow the next year. Although Mackie frequently participated in the annual 24 Hour Plays on Broadway—for which actors write, rehearse, and perform a new work within the span of a day—his focus in subsequent years shifted to film work.

His first starring role on the silver screen was in the 2004 independent movie Brother to Brother, in which he played a young artist finding his way in the world as a gay Black man. Other notable appearances in the early-to-mid 2000s include a star turn as a fired corporate executive who makes money as a sperm donor in Spike Lee’s farce She Hate Me (2004) and supporting roles as a boxer in Clint Eastwood’s best picture-winning Million Dollar Baby (2004), a drug dealer in Half Nelson (2006), and a football team captain in We Are Marshall (2006).

In 2008 Mackie returned to the theater and the work of Wilson by acting in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences, and Jitney as part of “August Wilson’s 20th Century” month at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C. In 2010 he again acted on Broadway, with a role in Martin McDonagh’s A Behanding in Spokane, opposite Christopher Walken. During this time Mackie continued to appear in movies, notably playing an American soldier in a bomb disposal unit during the Iraq War in the critically acclaimed The Hurt Locker (2008), directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and starring as rapper Tupac Shakur in Notorious (2009).

Entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe

In 2014 Mackie transitioned to bigger-budget fare by playing Sam Wilson, a morally upright veteran who becomes the high-flying superhero the Falcon, in the Marvel Studios blockbuster Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The The New York Times singled out Mackie as being “unfailingly charming” in the part. He has reprised the role in several films, including Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man (both 2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019).

In 2021, on the Disney+ limited streaming series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Mackie again portrayed Sam Wilson, as the character wrestles with being given the responsibility of becoming the next Captain America. Mackie continues that storyline as the lead in Captain America: Brave New World, which is to be released in February 2025. Sam Wilson will be the second Black Captain America, after Isaiah Bradley, who appears in Marvel comic books and also in the series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and will have a role in Captain America: Brave New World. (In Marvel lore, the shield of Captain America was originally held by the character Steve Rogers. After Rogers disappears, the mantle of Captain America is passed to a succession of replacement heroes.)

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Other film parts

Meanwhile, Mackie has continued to take on roles outside the world of superheroes. His notable later parts include playing Martin Luther King, Jr., in the HBO drama All the Way (2016); a gang leader in the film The Hate U Give (2018); and as one of the last two people on Earth, opposite Margaret Qualley, in the Netflix science fiction movie IO (2019). In addition, he is an executive producer and star of the streaming series Twisted Metal (2023– ), a postapocalyptic action-comedy based on a popular PlayStation video game.

Personal life

Mackie married his longtime girlfriend, Sheletta Chapital, in 2014, and they divorced in 2018. They have four children together.