"Captain America: The First Avenger" will focus on the early days of the Marvel Universe when Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) volunteers to participate in an experimental program that turns him into the Super Soldier known as Captain America. As Captain America, Rogers joins forces with Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) to wage war on the evil HYDRA organization, led by the villainous Red Skull (Hugo Weaving.)
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The folks over at
BlackFilm.com were lucky enough to have a chat with actor Derek Luke who stars opposite Jada Pinkett Smith in the
TNT series
Hawthorne and who also will be playing the Howling Commando Gabe Jones in Joe Johnston's upcoming adaption of the Marvel super-hero
Captain America: The First Avenger.
Luke discusses his transition from the TV small screen to such a big budget film as
Captain America, how he got the role, and whether or not he's currently signed on for future
Captain America films.
You are going to have the best summer this year considering you’re going to be seen on the small screen and on the big screen with ‘Captain America’ coming up. How did you go about in getting a role in the film?
DL: With ‘Captain America’, it was sort of similar to ‘Hawthorne’. On ‘Hawthorne’, it was an idea and I was submitted from a casting director who said, ‘I believe that Derek Luke would be great for this project’. Then I had a meeting with Marvel head Kevin Feige. He presented the character that I was playing for Marvel, and at that time it was interesting. We didn’t have a script. As a matter of fact, we didn’t get scripts until we showed up to shoot. So what ‘Hawthorne’ and Marvel have in common is that my preparation had to be very organic because ‘Hawthorne’ was actually shooting when I signed the line. And then Marvel signing the line you had to totally just go on faith. So both of these projects are so dear to me and exciting and that’s why I’m smiling right now.
When you were having the meeting with Kevin, did you have an idea as to what character you were going to be playing before you got the role of Gabe Jones?
DL: No. There was not much breakdown. And I think in Marvel’s defense is that as a nation there’s so much just piracy. You have to do so much just on loyalty when it comes down just to actors and fans. You work very hard on a film and sometimes it gets leaked out. So I understood or I was very undemanding to the fact that even though there wasn’t a script and there wasn’t much of a description of my character, I just believed that Marvel was doing some really great work, great messages in films. The good versus evil and I was just like, ‘How can I be down?’
Are you signed on to do more of ‘Captain America’ if there’s a sequel and will you be appearing in ‘The Avengers’?
DL: Well, with ‘Captain America’ and with Marvel you always sign multiple deals, and I had a chance to. So it wasn’t necessarily discussed on which one I’ll be in but granted that if there are multiple sequels then you will definitely see me. Acting is something that you step out in faith and you just believe that you will be in the right project at the right time.
Captain America: The First Avenger hits theaters July 22nd.
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