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Uh, give me a second. Sure. Oh my god.
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Hey, what's going on everybody?
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For First We Feast, I'm Sean Evans and you're watching Hot Ones.
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It's the show with hot questions and even hotter wings.
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And today we're joined by Anthony Mackie.
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You know him from films like The Hurt Locker, Captain America, Million Dollar Baby and many more.
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His latest film, Outside the Wire, is currently trending on Netflix and he also stars in one of the year's most anticipated new shows, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, which is set to release on Disney Plus March 19th.
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Anthony Mackie, welcome to the show. What's up, man? Thank you for having me.
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I know that you grew up nearby you.
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How do you handle the spicy stuff?
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I don't do well with spicy stuff at all.
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Anybody will tell you, I like my food as bland as possible. All right. It's not bad.
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It's kind of like ketchup. I can live with that.
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So, I want to start by talking about Falcon and The Winter Soldier and specifically this quote of yours from 2014 where you said, "The second and third leads are always the best characters."
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What did you mean by that and what do you see as the opportunity to build or redefine the character of Falcon in this series?
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Well, the lead character is usually someone just to help push the exposition along, push the story along.
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He's the one that you ride with throughout the vehicle.
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The best characters are always the third, fourth lead because they're the ones who actually get it to get in and do the dirty work.
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They're the ones that get to act.
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So, they're always the ones bouncing and controlling the lead actor, and he's just bringing them along for the ride.
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That's why when you watch the Academy Awards, best supporting actor is always a more coveted category than best actor.
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So, with 6 hours of content, you really get the opportunity to delve into not only the Falcon's backstory, but the Winter Soldier's backstory.
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Like if you see with WandaVision, after watching that show, you have a much richer and deeper relationship with Vision and Wanda now.
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Uh whereas before, you know, you would I would maybe have one, maybe two nuggets per movie.
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And but the movie was focused on the heavy hitters, the Iron Mans, the Captain Americas.
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So, you know, now I get more I get more playtime, so you get to learn more about me.
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No, that's actually good.
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So, New Orleans has a lot of nicknames.
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The Big Easy, Paris of the South.
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But as an avid fisherman, my guess is the one that rings truest to you is the sportsman's paradise.
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When you think about all the fish that you've had to fight on the hook, is there one that you would consider a prized catch? Oh, definitely. Great question.
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No one has ever asked me this before.
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Okay, so while we were shooting Endgame and Infinity War, they had these huge lakes and ponds on their properties.
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So, in between takes, I would go fishing.
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I bought a outdoor grill for my trailer.
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Like fresh fish right there on set, which some people had a problem with until they taste the fish.
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Then they understood my situation.
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I watch a lot of these River Monster shows that often times feature the marshes or the swamps of Louisiana.
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What's like the weirdest thing that you've ever pulled out of the water?
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Actually, when we were shooting Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter here in New Orleans, and they have these fish called alligator garfish.
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It's like a pike, but with the face of an alligator.
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So, one day I'm sitting out there I'm smoking a cigar.
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I have a PA with me so I don't get in trouble.
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So, the PA is just sitting there talking to me like, "Oh, this is so much fun.
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I can't believe we're on a movie."
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All of a sudden, the line starts to stretch out and there's a garfish about 5-ft long just munching on this fish.
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So, I take the line, I tie it to the bumper of the truck, pull the truck out from the water, so it brought the fish out.
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It was the biggest garfish I'd ever seen.
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It was bigger than this girl.
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This girl was like 5'2" and this fish was like 5'5".
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So, she freaked out, gets on the radio, "Oh my god, WE HAVE OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, SOMEBODY HELP US."
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BUT, it was just the ability to catch it and hold it, so I have a picture of this garfish like laying across my chest in full costume.
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When we were shooting Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Mhm. I can live with that.
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So, you've amassed 70-plus TV and film credits over the course of your career, which would speak to an appetite for exploring a variety of different characters and genres.
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Do you still to this day get stopped on the street by Law & Order fans even though you've only been in one episode?
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The I I I always say I'm most famous for 8 Mile and Law & Order.
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I always know cuz, you know, a lot of people don't watch Marvel movies.
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Whenever I go to the grocery store and, you know, all the older ladies know who I am, I'm like, "Law & Order came on."
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Cuz they didn't watch Captain America, they watched Law & Order.
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From who they are, I know where they recognize me from.
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Like you can guess which movie or which show they recognize you from.
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What's the difference between an 8 Mile fan and a Marvel fan?
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So, a 8 Mile fan, ironically enough, is usually like a cool, hip, like middle-aged, just down-to-earth, real cool cat.
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But, Marvel is usually either a middle-aged dude who's very grabby and touchy or a teenage kid who can't hold their [ __ ] Like there's no in-between.
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It's like you know, little girls giggle and run away, little boys just stop and freak out, and middle-aged dudes just always want to touch you and never leave you alone.
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It's the weirdest [ __ ] ever. It's the weirdest weird. Not mad at that, either.
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So, I know that you're suspicious of people who take New Orleans food and bar culture and then move them to cities like over here in New York, where they don't really understand the roots.
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So, if you'll humor me, I want to play a little game called Who Dat or Not That, where I give you a New Orleans culinary export and you tell me if it has Who Dat status or if it's just straight a Not That red flag. Does that sound good? I like it. I like it. All right.
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A seafood joint that serves year-round crawfish boils. Not that. Not that. Not that. Not that.
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Like we're right at the precipice of crawfish season right now.
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So, your crawfish just now coming out the mud.
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So, if you got crawfish off-season those are imported crawfish.
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I'm not going to say where they from, but you have mud bugs and you have scuttle bugs. Those are scuttle bugs.
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A New Orleans-themed bar where the bartender doesn't know how to make milk punch. That's hard.
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See, I'll give him a pass on that cuz milk punch is very, very local, very, very like in the ground.
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If you have a New Orleans themed bar and you know how to make a Sazerac, I'll forgive you on milk punch.
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If you have a daiquiri machine, if you serve Dixie beer, you know, a beta, if you have a beta, Giacomo, I'll give you that.
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But, milk punch is I'll I'll give you a pass on that, but you got to have something to replace it.
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A sandwich shop that serves po'boys with Cape Cod chips. No.
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Po'boys should only be eaten with Zapp's. That's the only thing.
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And the crawtators are the best ones.
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Don't tell me the voodoos are the best ones. It's not true. It's the crawtators.
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Everybody take the crawtators.
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Let me hit you with this phrase, gluten-free king cake. No. No. No.
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Oh [ __ ] This is going to hurt. I went too far. You called it. You called it. Oh.
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All right, Anthony we have a crane segment on our show called Explain That Gram where we do a deep dive on our guest's Instagram, pull interesting pictures that need more context.
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So, I'll show you the picture, you just tell us the bigger story.
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And we have a little workaround cuz your Instagram currently has one picture, Anthony, but we have a workaround.
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Which celebrity All-Star game do you remember more fondly?
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Last summer's softball match or the NBA All-Star game from 3 years ago?
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First of all, I had a great great showing in Cleveland at the All-Star game for MLB.
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I had three catches, inside-the-park home run, never struck out, should have won the MVP.
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I scored more runs than anybody, but we're not going to talk about it.
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I got to hang out with the Big Hurt. It was amazing.
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I grew up loving baseball.
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The basketball All-Star weekend, it was all about Master P and he took like 35 three-pointers and missed all of them.
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I'm like, "What are we doing, right?
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Like, why are we just Are we just out here for cardio?" That.
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So, it was the the the parties were better at All-Star weekend for basketball.
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I had a better experience with MLB hanging out with Ryan Howard, hitting home runs, crushing it.
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This looks like you're reigning here as the king of Bacchus.
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Bacchus is one of the super parades.
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And Bacchus is known as the workmen's parade.
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Carpenters, uh contractors, mechanics, like they're all members of Bacchus because you don't have to be rich to be a member.
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It It started as a society of guys who work together as a crew.
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My dad would take us down to the beginning of Bacchus on Napoleon and Tchoupitoulas.
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And you have the knights, the horsemen that ride before the parade in their full costumes on horseback.
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Southern University's marching band was right there.
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So, we got to ride like with like around in Southern's marching band, you know?
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So, we used to do that every year.
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And it was always an amazing amazing experience for for Mardi Gras to be able to do that.
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And you know, New Orleans has such unique culture and aesthetic.
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They try to capture it in TV and film all the time, even artists like Drake or Beyoncé.
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Can you think of a TV show, a film, a music video that you think best distills New Orleans?
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There's this movie called Angel Heart.
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It came out like in the early '80s, late '90s.
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It's a creepy movie with uh Lisa Lisa uh Lisa Bonet.
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It captures New Orleans culture and essence.
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It was so New Orleans it was creepy.
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One of my favorite movies.
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Every time I watch it it freaks me out.
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But I feel like it captures New Orleans better than anything. Oh. All right. There we go. That's gangster. Mhm. Heavy flavor. Oh my god. Oh.
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So with 22 movies under its belt, now this collection of Marvel series headed to Disney Plus, the MCU, it's ever expanding.
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What do you see as the unique challenges of remaining true to these classic superhero stories while also then building and creating new stories?
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Well, the problem is, you know, you every movie has to be bigger than the one before.
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So every movie has to be more outrageous, more extreme.
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So I find it hard to capture the reality of the story or stay true to the comic book.
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So it's I don't think the problem is the characters of the story.
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I think it's just how do you evolve these movies to where you don't see the same thing over and over.
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I always laugh because Marvel loves to show like six SUVs in a row going down the highway.
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Like every movie, you know, every movie has the six SUV like uh, like convoy, you know, going somewhere.
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So it's like how do you take that six SUV convoy and make it new and different every single movie.
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But I think that's the biggest challenge.
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So, this is the honey badger.
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New Orleans finest right there. Oh. Yeah. Ah. Ah.
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It doesn't help that it has killer on it.
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So, some people watching this may be surprised to learn that you're actually a very skilled carpenter.
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Is it still a dream of yours to do a home improvement show? It is.
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It um I I literally used to watch I used to watch HG I used to watch Now my tongue is like I used to watch HG TV all the time still.
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And I've always wanted to do like a cooking show and a home improvement show and a wellness show and put them all together just HG TV, ESPN, and Food Network. That's all I watch.
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Yeah, but I would love to do one.
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That would be fun as hell.
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Can you describe in detail the last piece of furniture that you built? Mhm.
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So, over uh COVID I've been working in my backyard.
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And um got some 2 by 4 metal studs, cut them out, hardy board, and tiled and built a uh outdoor kitchen.
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My brother-in-law was telling me about the epoxy.
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You pour it in and it hardens like glass, but you can put objects in it and it'll float around the objects.
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I want to figure out how to do epoxy countertops and you can put lights under them.
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It'd be some real pimp [ __ ] I'm sorry.
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All of it's out the window now. I can't breathe.
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Oh, it just looks like mud, dude. What? Eat that. Still going in though. Oh. Oh my god. Oh. Uh, give me a second. Sure. Holy [ __ ] Oh my god. I'm coming. Oh my god. I know, I know.
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Be careful around the eyes, too.
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This is a part where I'll say be careful around the eyes. You don't want Right. Right. Right.
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a cross-pollination issue. Right. Right. Right. I'll figure this out.
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What do you got going over there?
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I should have had bread, but I didn't get bread.
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So, I figured corn chips would be the closest thing. That's a new one to me. How does it work out? Corn chips, dog. Corn chips, dog. I'm back. Anthony Mackie pro tip. All right.
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I have a million questions about 8 Mile, but I'll keep them to my most pressing here so that we can move on down the gauntlet.
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I know we're probably on borrowed time.
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I guess overall, the thing that I'm most curious about are the battle rap scenes.
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Are there Juilliard techniques to draw on when it comes to ripping a mic on camera?
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Uh, you know what's interesting?
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I find myself very lucky to be have um studied Shakespeare.
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Um When you look at Shakespeare, the way he wrote, he wrote in verse.
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So, the idea of approaching a rapper from the perspective of an actor, you're really just speaking in poems.
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You know, I've always said one of the greatest rappers to ever live was William Shakespeare.
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So, it helped a lot as far as being able to understand the cadence, the verse, the meter, and putting those words in rhyming couplets and into form.
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I can't believe I got that out. Okay. Go ahead. Okay, cool.
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I'm I've got I'm I'm I'm running. I'm running now. I'm running.
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So, these days you're one of the most recognizable film stars on the planet, but I know that the foundation was set at Juilliard, which is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious drama schools in the world.
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Some trade schools are mandatory, and then there are others that are almost looked down on, like journalism for example.
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There are a lot of people who think you're better off learning on the job than going to journalism school.
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Where does drama school fall on that spectrum for you? One second. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going back.
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Um the um There's nothing more important I've learned a lot, um, being on set, uh, in the business.
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There's nothing more important to me than the training I got in drama school.
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I'm a firm believer in to be is to study.
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You would not go to a hospital and let somebody cut on you who didn't go to medical school. You know?
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If I didn't have my training, I wouldn't be able to play Tupac, Martin Luther King, Papa Doc, and the Falcon.
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I would only be able to play Tupac in every movie.
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I would only be able to play Martin Luther King in every movie or the Falcon in every movie.
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I wouldn't be able to do those different range of characters.
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So, that training is just something that gives you a extra leg to stand on. You know what I mean?
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So, once you have that background and that training, nobody can take that from you. Dude, that that hurt.
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One more, it's not funny either.
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Just being honest with you.
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But, you know what, Anthony?
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Some hosts, they'd let you drown all the wings.
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You know, they wouldn't be they wouldn't be telling you where the mines are. I appreciate it.
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Now, I'm happy because my mouth and my nose and my lips are numb.
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So, I can't feel anything anyway. Here we go.
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Dude, that's just straight pepper. Facts.
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But, you know what, Anthony Mackie?
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Here we are at the epilogue of our spicy wing journey, and you're an actor who's seen tremendous success with some of the biggest box office smashes of all time, as well as admiration for your work on Broadway.
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So, with that in mind, I want to take things back to this 2010 quote that you gave to the Juilliard Journal.
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I'd like to show everybody that not only can I do something like The Hurt Locker or Notorious, I can also do Shakespeare.
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Is there a Shakespearean soliloquy or aside that comes to mind when you think about your dinner date this evening with the wings of death? Oh my god.
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Thou, nature, art my goddess.
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To thy law, my services are bound.
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Wherefore should I stand in the plague of custom and permit of I can't.
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It's a standing ovation from this side of the room.
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That was amazing and look at you, Anthony Mackie, taking on the wings of death and coming through victorious.
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Couple laps, little sweat, but it's all in a day's work.
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And now there's nothing left to do but roll out the red carpet for you.
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This camera, probably just the camera you're looking at, let the people know what you have going on in your life. Oh, man.
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Synchronic is coming out movie theaters, go check it out.
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Go to a drive-in, snuggle up close, streaming. It's a really fun movie.
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Outside the Wire is on Netflix, check it out. Number one in the world.
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And March, we have Falcon Winter Soldier. It'll be a good time. Just check it out. Oh. Great job, Anthony. Great job.
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Problem was, it started off so nice and easy.
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I thought it was going to continue to be nice and easy. Oh.
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Hey, what's going on Hot Ones fans?
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This is Sean Evans checking in to say thank you so much for watching today's episode.
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If you enjoyed it, maybe like it.
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Maybe maybe throw us a subscribe even if you're feeling generous.
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And as long as you keep watching, [ __ ] it. I'll keep eating.