Anthony Dwane Mackie (born September 23, 1978) is an American actor. After graduating from Juilliard in 2001, he appeared in several stage productions and made his film debut with 8 Mile (2002). He then received numerous accolades for his starring roles in the films Brother to Brother (2004) and The Hurt Locker (2008). He further developed his career with films including Million Dollar Baby (2004), Half Nelson (2006), Notorious (2009) as Tupac Shakur, and Real Steel (2011).
Mackie achieved global stardom for portraying Sam Wilson / Falcon / Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), beginning with Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and including the miniseries The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) and his solo feature Captain America: Brave New World (2025). For his work in the franchise, he has received two MTV Movie Awards and nominations for two Critics' Choice Awards and two Saturn Awards.
Outside of the MCU, Mackie has starred in films such as Detroit (2017), The Hate U Give (2018) and Elevation (2024), and in television projects such as All the Way (2016) as Martin Luther King, Altered Carbon (2020) as Takeshi Kovacs, and Twisted Metal (2023–present). He earned his first Emmy nominations for hosting Shark Beach with Anthony Mackie: Gulf Coast (2024) and playing a fictionalized version of himself in The Studio (2025).
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Early life
Mackie was born on September 23, 1978, in New Orleans, Louisiana to Willie Mackie Sr., a construction worker, and Martha (née Gordon), a stay-at-home mom. He has five siblings, including Calvin, a motivational speaker and entrepreneur. He aspired to act in his childhood, attending high school at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and, after his mother's death, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. At age seventeen, he moved to New York City to attend Juilliard School, graduating in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts in drama.
Career
In 2002, Mackie worked as an understudy to Don Cheadle in Suzan-Lori Parks' play Topdog/Underdog and won an OBIE Award for his role in Carl Hancock Rux's play Talk. He appeared in the 2002 film 8 Mile as the main antagonist, Papa Doc. His first starring role in a feature film was the 2004 independent film Brother to Brother, where he played Perry, a young artist who struggles to adjust to the world as a gay black man. The following year, Mackie appeared in Million Dollar Baby, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and starred in Spike Lee's She Hate Me. In 2006, Mackie starred in Half Nelson, Crossover, and We Are Marshall.
In March 2008, Mackie starred in three plays by playwright August Wilson at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Fences, and Jitney – all part of "August Wilson's 20th Century", a month-long presentation of ten staged readings of Wilson's "Century Cycle". Mackie has participated several times in the "24-Hour Plays" held in New York City each fall. In mid-2009, he played the role of Pentheus in the New York City Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park production of The Bacchae. He starred with Christopher Walken in A Behanding in Spokane on Broadway in February 2010.
Mackie portrayed late American rapper Tupac Shakur in the 2009 film Notorious. He had previously portrayed Shakur in the play Up Against the Wind in 2001, while attending Juilliard. In 2009, he appeared in The Hurt Locker. Mackie also narrated The Best That Never Was, a documentary about football player Marcus Dupree. He appeared in the 2011 film The Adjustment Bureau as Harry Mitchell, a sympathetic member of a shadowy supernatural group that controls human destiny. Mackie co-starred, as Sam Wilson / Falcon, in the Marvel Studios sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). He reprised the role in multiple Marvel Cinematic Universe films over the next several years, including 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man, 2016's Captain America: Civil War, 2018's Avengers: Infinity War, and 2019's Avengers: Endgame.
In 2016, Mackie portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in the HBO TV drama All the Way. In 2018, Mackie appeared as gang leader King in The Hate U Give, a film adaptation of the bestselling novel of the same name. In 2019, Mackie had a role in the Netflix science-fiction film, IO.
In July 2018, it was announced that Mackie was cast in the role of Takeshi Kovacs for the second season of Netflix's science-fiction series, Altered Carbon. In March 2019, it was announced that Mackie was cast in the fifth season of Netflix's science-fiction anthology series, Black Mirror. The following month, Disney confirmed a Marvel television series starring Mackie and Sebastian Stan, called The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, would be aired on their upcoming Disney+ streaming service, debuting on March 19, 2021. Mackie starred in and produced the science fiction film Outside the Wire which was released by Netflix on January 15, 2021. In August 2021, Mackie closed the deal to reprise the role in the fourth Captain America film, Captain America: Brave New World.
Personal life
In 2014, Mackie married his long-time girlfriend and childhood sweetheart Sheletta Chapital. They divorced in 2018. The ex-couple have four sons together and the family lives in New Orleans. In February 2025, Mackie was asked about his current love life and said he was just focusing on raising his children because: "The idea of dating is really hard. How do you trust someone? How do you put yourself in a position to be vulnerable? How do you know what someone really [wants] from you when all you want is to just be loved and appreciated? What does that look like?”.
Mackie opened a bar called NoBar in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in the summer of 2011. He had plans to open a second NoBar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2013, but closed all NoBar locations in 2015.
In November 2013, Mackie was arrested for driving while intoxicated after he was initially stopped by police for having tinted windows, which are illegal in New York. He was pulled over at 1:22 a.m., officers noticed an odor of alcohol and observed that Mackie had bloodshot eyes. He was fined $300, ordered to complete a drunk driving program and banned from the road for 90 days in New York state for the violation.
On The Kelly Clarkson Show, Mackie revealed that he has dyslexia.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Mackie has received multiple awards and nominations, including nominations for three Critics' Choice Awards, two Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
