Joe Russo: We always said that the whole movie lives or dies on that last scene between him and Bucky. You know, this third act is a fait accompli in a way. It’s a superhero movie.
Steve McFeely: I suspect he will win.
Joe Russo: The expectation is that he will win. But the real story is will he win Bucky, will he save his friend, will his friend kill him, will he have to kill his friend? The tragedy of that moment was the most important thing to us as directors in the third act. That’s the real climax of the act.
Steve McFeely: Yeah, from jump street we always worked towards getting to: “I will sacrifice myself in order to reach my friend.” And so “end of the line” has been the line since the very beginning. And Sebastian nails it, it cracks him.
Chris Markus: Again, it’s about Steve trying to save his past.
Joe Russo: It’s the last thing he has left.
– Captain America: The Winter Soldier Blu-ray Audio Commentary
“I watched a lot of documentaries on post-traumatic stress and a lot of army documentaries about the training programs and some of the extreme sort of circumstances that some of those guys that are training to be Navy SEALs and some who are a part of it go through. I was trying to understand what it is, what it means for someone to be desensitized, to no longer question hurting something. I did as much research on all that stuff as I could in order to kind of know what that was like. And then my stepdad actually has Alzheimer’s, so there were parts about watching and studying that kind of disease, also, observing people like that that kind of helped me a little bit.”—SEBASTIAN STAN
How are you gonna get Cap interested in fighting Ultron when he should be consumed with finding Bucky? The fact is Ultron is a clear present danger, and Bucky is in the wind. And we do mention the fact that that’s his sort of primary thing but he’s also working with The Avengers too. We’re not ignoring it but he definitely has to deal with a mad 8-foot robot… ‘cause that’s one of those things, you know, you put if off, and it just gets worse.
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