Anthony Mackie details extreme measures Marvel take to keep scripts secret

The long process involves a password, secret location, and reading in front of a ‘21-year-old intern’

Anthony Mackie has let slip the top secret way Marvel has its actors read the scripts.

Mackie played Captain America opposite Sebastian Stan in the 2021 Disney Plus series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, taking up the mantle from Chris Evans.

Next year, he will star in the MCU’s Captain America: New World Order, the fourth film in the Captain America franchise.

During a recent appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Mackie revealed the extreme lengths he has to go to in order to read the script for the new movie.

“Ironically enough, I got my script today,” Mackie said.

“I haven’t read it. Haven’t opened it. I haven’t gotten my passcode to the website that lets you into the website.”

He went on to detail the steps he has to go through to read the script, which he must read together with someone, who is most often a “21-year-old intern and he just hates you”.

Mackie said: “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.

(© Marvel 2016)

“They don’t trust nobody. 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 said his dyslexia is 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,” said Mackie.

“‘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.”

Anthony Mackie en El halcón y el soldado de invierno (Disney Plus)

Fellow Marvel actor Zoe Saldaña spoke out against the intense security measures, calling them “annoying”.

Last year, the Guardians of the Galaxy star had to take down a video of herself flipping through a script for a Marvel film.

“That can be annoying sometimes,” Saldaña said.  “That’s not cool, because you have to memorise, you have to prepare, you have to do research. And I tend to take myself a little too seriously sometimes.

“I really enjoy working with filmmakers that don’t underestimate my intelligence and know that I am an adult.”

Needless to say, details surrounding the release of Captain America: New World Order are being kept under wraps.

The film, which also stars Stan, Tim Blake Nelson, and Harrison Ford, is slated for a theatrical release on 3 May 2024.