Most Marvel Cinematic Universe fans are firmly on board with the idea of the franchise getting a new Captain America, they just don’t want it to be John Walker if the first two episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier are any indication.
Having been handed the legendary shield by Steve Rogers during the final scenes of Avengers: Endgame, there was excitement in seeing Sam Wilson inherit the mantle, while there was also a lot of support behind the idea of Bucky stepping in for his longtime best friend. Instead, the MCU has taken a different route and passed the baton onto another of the various characters to have suited up as Marvel Comics’ star-spangled superhero.
Wyatt Russell knew going in that he would instantly become a villain in the eyes of the fanbase, regardless of whether or not Walker turns out to be a bad guy, which is looking very likely given his comic book history. And in a new interview, the actor admitted that he asked Marvel if he could wear Chris Evans’ old suit in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but the costume department made him a new one instead.
“It’s funny, I requested Chris Evans’ old suit so that I could really feel like I was doing a good job because he did such a great job, then they gave me a new one. It was, ‘Oh gosh, take it off, you got the wrong guy. Send me back, you’re going to lose so much money’. Honestly it was like, ‘How do I act in this thing?’. It looks as uncomfortable as I look in it, it’s that uncomfortable.
It’s kind of part of the character and it was part of the draw, was being able to play someone like that and try to do it convincingly. But it was fun to be able to be set up as that character. Normally everyone’s always trying to make you likable, or more vulnerable, or whatever it is. And this was a different thing for me to be able to do. And I had a blast doing it.”
No offense to Russell, who’s hardly in bad shape, but he might not be jacked enough to slip into Evans’ old duds without them looking a little on the baggy side, not to mention the questionable in-canon optics of pulling Steve Rogers’ suit from a museum exhibit and slapping it on his government-sponsored replacement. Walker doesn’t have superpowers of his own, at least not yet anyway, but he’s already been positioned as Sam and Bucky’s storyline rival in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, regardless of his outfit.