Avengers: Endgame ended in just about the most perfect way possible for fans. Not all the endings were happy, but each was satisfying in its own way. One of the biggest moments in the film's finale was the passing of the shield from Chris Evans' Steve Rogers to Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson. It was a touching scene between the two characters that had been through so much, but it turns out that at one point Chris Evans wasn't actually part of the scene.
In a recent appearance on SiriusXM's Jess Cagle show, Anthony Mackie revelated that originally the plan was simply to cast an older actor to play old Steve Rogers, rather than put Chris Evans in prosthetics. A number of actors were brought in to be considered, but ultimately it was decided that none of them really worked to play an old version of Chris Evans, because, ultimately, Chris Evans is just too damn good looking. According to Mackie...
Well, it's funny they actually wanted to cast an old dude to play Chris Evans. So they brought in like three actors. They're like, none of these, like this, isn't how Chris will look when he's old. Like, he's gonna, he's like George Clooney. He's going to be 95 and still like handsome, you know? So they, they brought in a makeup team and prosthetics and makeup and made them into an old man. And how good of an actor Chris is it actually worked like he, he pulled it off with his voice and everything. He did a great job..
One of the potential reasons not to use the original actor is that it might be difficult to make them appear to be as old as they are. It's a combination of make-up work to achieve the look, and the actor being able to give the performance both physically and verbally to make you believe it. With an older actor, you don't need to worry about any of these things, which is likely why that idea was considered.
Anthony Mackie says that Chris Evans certainly did his part making the older Steve Rogers work. And the make-up is so good that I wasn't entirely certain it actually was Chris Evans sitting on that bench. It's a great scene that is performed perfectly. It's also a scene that is going to have repercussions throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We know that exactly who will carry that shield is going to be a topic of debate that will be dealt with beginning with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the Disney+ series that will debut following WandaVision.
And who knows, the new rumor is that Chris Evans may not be done with the MCU after all, so maybe we'll see old Steve again down the road.
