‘There’s No Secret Serum’: Anthony Mackie Is Ready To Bring an Everyman Captain America to the MCU

We might be a little less than two years away from Captain America: New World Order, but star Anthony Mackie is getting fans ready for what they can expect.

The Disney+ limited series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, ended with Mackie’s Sam Wilson officially taking over the mantle of Captain America. However, it seems like Sam’s star-spangled hero will definitely be different from Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers.

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According to Men’s Journal, Mackie is planning for Sam to be more of an everyday, regular guy, which makes sense because he doesn’t actually have any powers.

“What you have to realize about Sam—he’s a superhero who is not really a superhero,” the Twisted Metal star said. “There’s no secret serum. There’s no this or that. I just have wings on my suit that I got from the military. So everything that I do, I do as a common man. When you see me, you might think, ‘Oh, I can be a superhero, too.’ Whereas if you look at Hulk or any of those guys, you can’t compete.”

With the movie set to begin production next year, the actor is already in training, consuming a lean-protein diet of “fish, chicken, and turkey with assorted vegetables” and working out to get his body in superhero shape.

“For me, it’s impossible to burn fat and build muscle at the same time. One of them has to be sacrificed, so I try to put the muscle on my frame first, because I have the muscle memory,” he said. “After that, I strip all the water and fat out of my system by doing lightweight, cardio-heavy workouts in the morning then cardio again in the evenings. So, the first three months, I lift as heavy as possible—literally everything I can pick up. And that last month, that’s when I’ll just run and burn as much fat as I can.”

And you thought being a superhero was all cool costumes and clever catchphrases.

Captain America: New World Order, which is scheduled to be released May 3, 2024, will be helmed by Nigerian-American director Julius Onah and find Mackie joined by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier co-stars Danny Ramirez and Carl Lumbly.