It may not seem like tough work, but press junkets can be hard on actors. It's a lot of sitting around for hours on end performing under hot lights in a small hotel room, not only answering the same questions hundreds of times, but pretending that every response is the first time it's been given. As a result, when you give them a chance to have fun, a lot of them immediately take it -- which goes a long way in explaining the amount of fun Anthony Mackie and Benedict Cumberbatch had with my Infinity Gauntlet during the Avengers: Infinity War press day this past weekend.
Being a collector of movie memorabilia, I decided to purchase a replica Infinity Gauntlet from Avengers: Infinity War earlier this month, and the timing happened to coincide with my coverage of the blockbuster's domestic junket. I figured it would be fun to bring the toy with me to the different rooms and ask who among their characters they thought would be most worthy of possessing the real deal. As a result, my Gauntlet wound up in the hands of Anthony Mackie and Benedict Cumberbatch, and as you can see in the video above, they both had a crazy amount of fun with it. Unfortunately, it was also a serious distraction as I tried to continue the interview normally.
At the start, both Anthony Mackie and Benedict Cumberbatch had some of the exact same instincts, including using the Gauntlet to flip the bird and pick their noses. After those little antics, Cumberbatch mostly settled down, answering questions with co-star Tom Holland, but Mackie was only getting started. As Winston Duke and Sebastian Stan tried to answer my questions, Mackie would reach over to grab shoulders and rub heads, eventually counting down responses on the fingers. Of course, Duke and Stan had absolutely no sympathy for me, as it was totally a situation that I brought upon myself, but I didn't really care. It was chaos, and I learned little to nothing about Avengers: Infinity War, but it was also a lot of fun, and an interview that I will not be soon forgetting.
But will Sam Wilson or Doctor Strange perhaps end up with the real Infinity Gauntlet in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Only time will tell, but the good news is that fans won't have to wait much longer for answers. Joe and Anthony Russo's Avengers: Infinity War is out in theaters this Friday, April 27th, and be sure to look out here on CinemaBlend for a whole lot more from my interviews with the cast and filmmakers behind the film.
