The Falcon And The Winter Soldier Moment You Didn't Know Was Improvised
"The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" has aired its Season 1 finale — and one of its biggest moments was completely improvised. Spoilers ahead!
As the episode, entitled "One World, One People," drew to a close, fans got a potentially final glimpse of John Walker (Wyatt Russell), recently stripped of his title as Captain America after very publicly murdering one of the Flagsmashers. However, after a team-up with Julia Louis-Dreyfus' intriguing new character, Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine — who Walker insists on calling "Val" — Walker not only has a new costume, but a new alias: U.S. Agent.
As Contessa says to Walker, things might get "weird" going forward, providing a need for a U.S. Agent rather than a Captain America... and while this is a potentially exciting development for Walker, his new black suit isn't. As he looks down at himself, Walker seems pretty unimpressed, noting that it looks almost exactly like his old suit. Apparently, this reaction was true to life; here's the moment from "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" you definitely didn't know was improvised.
Wyatt Russell and John Walker both were pretty blasé about their new costume
In a feature in Vanity Fair, Russell revealed that Walker's lack of enthusiasm about the costume was real — Russell, like his character, wasn't exactly blown away.
"When I went to see the costume, I thought there'd be a lot to deal with. It was...it's really the exact same costume but it's just black and red," Russell told the outlet. After apparently leaving his costume fitting feeling "like a deflated kid on Christmas," he continued, "It's cool that it's a different color but it's, like, the same suit." However, his reaction actually worked for him and Louis-Dreyfus from an acting perspective: "It provided a fun thing for me and Julia beyond what was on the page in that scene."
With his new suit, however, it sure seems like Walker — and Louis-Dreyfus, hopefully — have a future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When asked, however, Russell demurred. ""Part of the way I approached Marvel was it's all your last time you're going to do it," the actor said coyly. "Marvel operates in a really cool way where they don't make decisions before they see what works. I'm not a part of any of this decision making, obviously."
As for Walker's journey throughout this first season, Russell hopes fans enjoyed watching it, even when they hated the character. "Hopefully you were taken from someone who you really are set up to despise down the journey of understanding where he came from," Russell said. "Whether or not you like it or agree with it, you're going to understand why he's doing it." He also noted that Walker's trajectory has some pretty serious implications if he does return to the MCU: "At the end of the series, he's grown into himself in a very dangerous way."
The first season of "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier," which closed out by rebranding itself as "Captain America and the Winter Soldier," is streaming on Disney+ now.