Remember that time Mark Ruffalo not-even-vaguely spoiled the ending of Avengers: Infinity War months before it came out — and somehow no one noticed? Marvel got so mad, apparently, that they sent him a dummy script for Endgame. Then there’s Tom Holland, who has a reputation for dropping spoilers. No wonder MCU honchos now treat their precious scripts like Fort Knox gold. Indeed, Anthony Mackie recently laid out what it’s like to even access his screenplays.
On an episode this week of The Kelly Clarkson Show, Mackie discussed his lead role in the Harrison Ford-featuring Captain America: New World Order, his first film as the new Cap. As it happened, on the day of filming he had just been giving the film’s script. “I haven’t read it. Haven’t opened it. I haven’t gotten my passcode to the website that lets you into the website.”
In fact, it sounds like it’s a convoluted process, which he happily laid out. “We literally get a passcode to a website that gives us a location to meet the person to sign, to sit with a computer, and read our script. They don’t trust nobody,” Mackie explained. “And it’s always like some 21-year-old intern and he just hates you. He’s sitting there eating Cheetos and he’s like ‘Read faster.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m dyslexic.’ And he’s like, ‘I don’t care.’”
Mackie also discussed his dyslexia:
“That’s what got me into acting. Teachers are the most important foundation of American culture. And I had this teacher named Ms. Dorsey. I was making straight As and Bs. I couldn’t figure out English. ‘See spot run,’ I didn’t even know Spot was in a race. She was like, ‘We just need to find something to pique your interests, make reading interesting.’ And then she gave me this whole program and all of a sudden I’m reading Shakespeare, I’m reading Ibsen, I’m reading Chekhov. I’m reading all this different stuff and it’s making sense.”
Making cracking open their scripts difficult isn’t the only way they’ve played coy with Mackie. As of last fall, the actor wasn’t even sure if he’d be in one of the next big films, Thunderbolts.
You can watch Mackie’s chat with Kelly Clarkson in the video below.
(Via IndieWire)