Anthony Mackie spills on Betty White making his Golden Girls dreams come true
It seems pretty good to be Anthony Mackie these days. Apart from playing a cool robot (okay, android) in Netflix’s Outside The Wire, and a sort-of robot-clone guy in the second season of Altered Carbon (also Netflix), Mackie’s also about to reprise his role as Sam Wilson in the MCU’s ongoing takeover of all streaming in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier. (Premiering on March 19 on Disney+.) So, yeah, pretty full plate for Mackie, who appeared on Thursday’s Tonight Show, with the Avenger even having to step in to the role of stuntman for much of Outside The Wire.
“For some reason, summer of 2018 was a very good summer for Black stuntmen,” Mackie told Fallon, explaining that, after his fall guy concussed himself filming the first gag of the shoot, Mackie gamely stepped in to hurl himself off some stuff. Doing an impression of director Mikael Håfström, Mackie had to admit that either flattery or bullying works on him, as the Outside The Wire director talked him into risking his bankable neck by cajoling, “C’mon, you big guy, people like you, jump off the building.” What can Mackie say, people do like him. He jumped off the building.
Telling Fallon about his excitement to root against Tom Brady when his first-round victorious Saints play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this Sunday (and showing off his week-long pre-game Saints socks and slippers), New Orleans superfan Mackie had to admit that, if he ever met the “beautiful” Brady, he’d forget all allegiance and ask to hug the “beautiful” QB and “comb his hair.” Mackie also confessed that his NFL fandom does not extend to fantasy football acumen, noting that the all-Avengers fantasy league this year saw him finishing dead last, and enduring endless trash talk from eventual winner Chris Pratt, better Chris, Chris Evans, and Paul Rudd, whose slow-burn “intellectual” jock-taunting sometimes doesn’t land until much later. Score one for Ant-Man.
Still, there’s nobody Anthony Mackie fans out for harder than one particular Golden Girl, upcoming 99th birthday celebrant, Betty White. Noting that he is all about Hallmark’s late-night, all Golden Girls programming as a post-filming cool-down, Mackie recalled the night a few years ago when, at a New York event, he couldn’t but gush over White, even picking out his favorite Golden Girls episode (the one where White tap-dances, natch’). And, because Betty White is, was, and ever shall be a legend, Mackie told Fallon how the venerable star laughed, stroked Mackie’s cheek, and said, “Oh, you make me wish I was 40 years younger.” Yup, it’s good to be Anthony Mackie.