This article contains spoilers about Thunderbolts*.
The biggest shock in Captain America: Brave New World had nothing to do with Harrison Ford turning into a Red Hulk or Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) somehow surviving their fight despite not having any super soldier serum running through his veins. Nope, it was actually Sebastian Stan’s quick, bizarre cameo revealing that Bucky Barnes… was running for Congress.
Yes, the mass-murdering, former Hydra operative was on the campaign trail, running for a seat in the House of Representatives. Why not! And as we learn at the beginning of Thunderbolts*, despite his decades of killing as the Winter Soldier, Bucky wins the race and becomes Brooklyn’s congressman. Weirder things have happened in politics, but still…
However, as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) snidely points out later in the movie, Bucky only lasts half a term before donning his black leather jacket, hopping on a motorcycle, and letting his Winter Soldier freak flag fly again. And with Val publicly declaring that he, along with the rest of the Thunderbolts team, is now the New Avengers, is Buckty’s political career officially over?
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Sebastian Stan in ‘Thunderbolts*’
Since it’s not clear onscreen, Entertainment Weekly went straight to Stan to find out. “Yeah, it’s almost like crossing it out, right?” the actor tells EW. “He’s still been trying to find his way of how he can contribute in a way that he hasn’t before. Ultimately, he realizes, ‘No, I am who I am, and I do things how I do them, and I should just do that.'”
Stan laughs before adding, “But there’s a lot of strange congressmen these days anyway, so…” As he trails off, his costar Wyatt Russell points out that Bucky wouldn’t have to give up his congressional seat “technically, theoretically,” to act as the Winter Soldier.
“The only issue I had was, ‘Well, why is he growing out his hair if he’s going to be a congressman?!'” Stan adds. “But I still wanted to grow it out, so I was like, ‘I don’t care.'”
Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier agrees with Stan’s answer about Bucky’s political future being dead on arrival. “I think that’s pretty well done,” the filmmaker tells EW. “I think he’s found a new place that makes much more sense for him.”
When Stan learned that Bucky was running for Congress in his brief Captain America: Brave New World appearance, he remembers feeling “curiosity and apprehension” about that shocking new direction for his character.
“But I think it is funny,” he adds. “I think it was an interesting turn that I didn’t see [coming], and I think probably a lot of people wouldn’t have seen.”
Getting back on Bucky’s motorcycle in one of Thunderbolts* best action scenes felt more natural, especially since it mirrored his MCU debut in Captain America: The Winter Soldier 11 years ago. “It was interesting because, after the TV show Falcon and the Winter Soldier, I think we got him further along in a good head space where I feel he is now just finally realizing how to incorporate some of those Winter Soldier characteristics and get a handle on them,” Stan says. “And so it was fun bringing back some of those moments with the new Bucky that we’ve established and to find the humor and the cool, dangerous factor as well. That was nice.”
The director confirms that the motorcycle sequence was an intentional callback to Bucky’s original entrance.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) in ‘Thunderbolts*’
“Having Sebastian actually out there on that bike and doing this stuff and no green screen to it, just felt really special,” Schreier says. “Bucky is just such a legend within the world, and then obviously within the world of people who care about these movies. The trick is for someone who’s on their ninth film, how do you do something new, because he has been through those therapy sessions in Falcon and Winter Soldier. He is not in the same place that the rest of them are in.”
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Schreier loved showing Bucky struggle with his new, “frustrating” political career, because it clearly wasn’t an “honest” path for him, only for him to reappear “in a more healed version” of who he’d been before as the Winter Soldier. “Back on that motorcycle doing Bucky things,” he adds, “but with a new group of people that, even if it’s the least expected thing, might be the best fit for him because what he’s gone through, they’re going through now, and he has something to offer them in that regard.”
Let’s hope Sam can appreciate that and stop fighting Bucky over the group’s New Avengers team name.
Thunderbolts* is now playing in theaters.
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