As "Captain America: The First Avenger" continues rolling toward its July 22 release, we're getting more and more looks at director Joe Johnston's vision for the Marvel Comics property. While Hugo Weaving in full Red Skull makeup remains a hot item that fans are waiting to see, yesterday brought our first look at another major character: Cap's lovable scamp of a sidekick, James "Bucky" Barnes.
You'll probably get a glimpse of Bucky in motion this Sunday when the film's debut trailer airs during the Super Bowl, but you can get your first look at a still now, thanks to a photo posted at the Los Angeles Times. In the interview with Johnston that accompanies the photo, the director speaks a bit on the Bucky character, and on Sebastian Stan's portrayal of him.
It turns out this this iteration of Bucky won't be the somewhat innocent tag-along character that his comic book counterpart was in his early days.
"Sebastian brought something really interesting and slightly on the dark side and really compelling to watch — when he’s on camera, you’re fascinated by watching him," Johnston said. "In a great cast, I thought he really stood out and brought some unexpected things to the role. Everyone brought something to the movie and a lot of them brought something great, but I was most pleasantly surprised by what Chris brought and what Sebasatian brought in a much smaller role as Bucky."
Johnston didn't go into tremendous detail, but he did say that some liberties have been taken with the relationship between Bucky and Cap.
The two characters' ages are closer, for one, and they are both orphans who grow up together as brothers. Bucky enlists in the Army, but the pre-Captain America Steve Rogers is too sickly to do so himself. So, when Rogers gets the super-soldier serum and heads off to war, his next encounter with Bucky has these added layers to play off of.
"You know, he was originally up for the lead, for the Steve Rogers role, but he didn’t have quite the same earnest, I-want-to-fight-for-my-country aura that Chris has for this role," Johnston said. "Sebastian has a little bit of the bad boy, he’s a little bit of the James Dean type and that goes somewhat counter to the general perception of Steve Rogers."
"He wasn’t quite right for Captain America, but I think he’s perfect for Bucky because, really, he can have a little bit of that dark side," he said.
Let us know what you think of the new photo and details about Bucky and Cap in the comment section or on Twitter!