Actor Sebastian Stan is a little disappointed that Marvel Studios rushed through Bucky Barnes‘ Winter Soldier arc so quickly in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Stan made his MCU debut as Bucky Barnes in the 2011 movie, Captain America: The First Avenger, which set up the character’s Winter Solder transformation by depicting his supposed death during a World War II mission. The next two Captain America movies — The Winter Soldier (2014) and Civil War (2016) — saw Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers coming to blows with Bucky’s brainwashed Winter Soldier persona while at the same time working to redeem his former sidekick.
After the events of Civil War, Bucky was sent to Wakanda to receive help in getting rid of the brainwashing that Hydra had done to him. By the time Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame rolled around, Bucky had been seemingly fixed and was no longer under the influence of Hydra’s Winter Soldier brainwashing.
During a recent interview with Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused podcast (via ComicBookMovie.com), Stan opened up about how he wished Marvel Studios had left Bucky as the Winter Soldier for more than two movies, explaining, “The whole Winter Soldier aspect of that character…I almost wish we’d have explored more of that. There’s that whole situation where he’s having memory lapses and some of his old memories are coming back and he’s short-circuiting. He wasn’t as brainwashed to a machine if you look in the comic books.”
The actor continued, “There’s a Winter Soldier alter-ego who’s never known he was someone else but was functional and every time they’d zap him, they’d desensitize him more and more. It’s actually quite fascinating. What would it have been like for him to wake up after that fall, missing the one arm, doesn’t know where he is, and the whole process of him losing his emotions and becoming this thing. It would have been interesting to see.”
Watch Horowitz’s entire conversation with Stan below:
Where will the Winter Soldier appear next in the MCU?
Stan has returned to the role of Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier twice since the conclusion of The Infinity Saga. He appeared opposite Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson in the 2021 limited series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and voiced variants of his character across two seasons of the animated series, What If…?
He will next appear as Bucky in the upcoming crossover movie, Thunderbolts*, which reunites him with his The Falcon and the Winter Solder co-star Wyatt Russell, who is back as John Walker/U.S. Agent. The rest of the cast for Thunderbolts* includes Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, Olga Kurylenko as Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster, Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr/Ghost, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
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Directed by Jake Schreier, Thunderbolts* hits theaters on May 2, 2025, as part of Phase 5 of the MCU.
