Carl Lumbly’s first on screen acting credit came with a single line in 1979’s Escape from Alcatraz. Since then he’s been in countless movies and TV shows, in a career that has seen him play many superhero characters, including prime time television’s first-ever Black superhero on M.A.N.T.I.S. Now he’s a major figure in the latest film from the world’s biggest franchise. How is he preparing for the notoriety that comes with starring in an MCU movie? And what changed for his character Isaiah Bradley since we last saw him on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier? We asked him about that, Isaiah’s arc in Captain America: Brave New World, what happened to his mustache, and a whole lot more when Nerdist got the chance to talk to him about the film.
Nerdist: I want to get into some serious stuff, but MCU fans need to know: What happened to Isaiah’s mustache and who’s responsible for him going clean shaven?
Carl Lumbly: :laughs: I would say the universe is responsible for him going clean shaven. It’s in part because he’s back in the world in a way that he wasn’t. He’s not hiding anymore. And Sam Wilson is responsible for that. For better or worse.
Did you miss it, though?
Lumbly: To tell you the truth, no.
Cause it looked good. It’s a good one.
Lumbly: Thank you. :laughs: Thank you very much. But no, no. I was always a mama’s boy and even though my mother has passed for some years now, in my mind there’s still this image of what she preferred me to look like and it was clean shaven. She would always say something like, “Oh gosh, you didn’t shave?” Or, “You look so scruffy.” So I pretty much always try to be clean shaven.
It was kind of a joy to be all beard-y and ruffish in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. So while I understand the principle, you always like to see yourself a little different, especially when you’re doing a film or a project.
You’ve been doing this for more than 45 years and you’ve been in plenty of movies and TV shows with huge fanbases, but being part of an MCU movie is a totally different kind of famous that not even the Disney+ series could convey. Are you ready for just how many people around the world are going to recognize you now?
Lumbly: No, I’m not. I am not. In a way, the reason is because I’m not cognizant of it. You only meet people one at a time. Or in groups at a rally, Comic-Con, or at D23. It’s just that room. You don’t really have a sense of it even moving around in the world.
What I do notice is frequency of recognition. So there’s been an amplitude running through my career. More so sometimes. As an example, Alias, a television show I did, that seemed to be a pretty big bump initially. When I started doing Cagney & Lacey that was a thing that I was not at all used to, just the idea of somebody calling your name, or calling your character’s name to get your attention. This, though, the frequency already from the trailer, is notable and kind of unlike anything I’ve experienced. Now I wish I had a beard.
Are you excited or scared? How do you feel about what you kind of know is coming even though you don’t exactly know what it’s going to entail?
Lumbly: I’m not at all scared. I don’t love always being recognized, but I’m so proud to have been in this project. It’s significant in ways that I think I know, and maybe in ways that I’m not aware of. I suppose the audiences will determine that, but I’m not scared of it. I welcome it.
There are some projects I have done where, I don’t like to lie, but I might deny that it was me. “Well, it was an actor who looked a lot like me. I’m not sure that was me.” But not this one. Or from The Falcon and Winter Soldier. I have been really proud because I love this character, Isaiah. I love what he stands for. And I love the Marvel universe took the opportunity to do right by a character that they had already taken the opportunity to do right by including in the canon. So I welcome it.
I also have a sense that it’s much more than I have ever experienced and we’ll see how that goes. I’m a little bit of an introvert. Perhaps even a lot of an introvert. And we’ll see which direction this pushes me. Maybe right into recluse.
At the start of this movie, Isaiah seems to have found a peace that he didn’t know on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Can you explain how you thought about the character’s evolution from the last time we saw him to the start of now, and how you approached the part in Captain America: Brave New World?
Lumbly: I felt that in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier he was definitely in hiding. Even though he had been released from prison he was still imprisoned in his mind. He was fearful of what his expectation was based on the fact that he had been betrayed. What’s that thing? Even if you’re paranoid, they still might be out to get you.
One of my favorites.
Lumbly: Yeah. And Sam is such a phenomenon to him as a Black man, why Sam has the hubris and believes he can just have agency to do whatever he wants. It’s kind of stunning to Isaiah and he kind of wants to protect [Sam]. Then after Sam clearly, as Falcon, has no need for protection he opens Isaiah’s mind to the idea it really is a different day in a different world. It’s beyond recognition.
Isaiah feels like the little piece of love that he has held onto, represented by his wife Faith, that’s still in his heart, perhaps means his love is not dead. His love for all the things he loved when he enlisted in the Army, when he wanted to fight for his country, when he took on a suicide mission not expecting to return but expecting to do some good, to stand in the place of Captain America. That betrayal, that 30 years of experimentation, those things he went through, he thought they had killed his heart. And Sam has expanded his love again and made it possible for him to believe that he can be at peace in the world. He doesn’t need all the recognition. He doesn’t need the mustache.
Yes, he is at peace at the beginning, and it’s just simple. He’s got a function in the world. He can help people, he can train them. He can go to basketball games, he can hang with his grandson when his grandson is willing. But yeah, he’s content. He’s happy to be where he is.
After some genuine joy, his peace is quickly replaced by just devastation and sadness.
Lumbly: Same old same old.
What did you draw on to get to that place emotionally?
Lumbly: If I’m being honest, it’s kind of my sense of my own lived history where you make gains and you have fallbacks. You sometimes trust people who don’t have your best interest at heart, and they lead you down a path and then knock you over the cliff at the end of that path. And you are falling and you get hurt and you can’t believe it, but you get back up. That’s my experience of it. I don’t assume that everyone does that. I know there are a lot of people who go over the cliff and don’t come back. Who are damaged and who are broken and betrayed. It’s kind of like, “Fool me once….” Some people don’t learn after twice.
But Isaiah has been betrayed at such a level, and what it took to come back to a place of comfort in the world was so great, he can’t accept it. It’s un-reality. And even though it’s familiar, it just can’t be. He can’t trust in anyone anymore. In that moment, trust is gone. Love is dashed and he feels like a fool.
That brings me to a couple of specific scenes I want to talk about that are two of my favorites in the movie. The first is the scene with you and Sam when you’re in the jail cell and you tell him to stay away. What was it like filming that?
Lumbly: It was very emotional. I try to commit to the reality of the character, not my own reality. So in a situation like that, if someone is offering me help, I would be really, really very happy to accept it. Grateful. And especially because he essentially brought me to a place of comfort. He should be able to do it again. But he’s only human. And if the forces that work in my life, if my fate is to be constantly betrayed, I don’t want to be an agent of betrayal to a man I love and respect. And he has much more to lose than I do.
What more can be done to Isaiah? He’s just returning to a place where he didn’t want to be, but maybe it was madness on his part to think that he could ever not be in that situation. So to have made a friend like Sam, and to have to say to a friend who is in anguish about what has happened to you and makes you a promise to help, to say, “No, no, you have too much to lose. I don’t care anymore. Go.” It’s not really true. But it’s what Isaiah has to say because he does not want to visit whatever his karma apparently is on Sam. Not when Sam is so vitally important.
The other scene is a moment late in the film where you are in the jail cell by yourself. There’s no dialogue and the sun is on your face. Can you tell me what’s going through Isaiah’s mind in that moment? Because it was just a couple seconds and I found it incredibly powerful and emotional.
Lumbly: I was just “running the tape.” Isaiah, at base, was taken away from so much. And the one thing that he has is Faith. Literally, his wife Faith, that memory. He has his grandson, Eli, and they have a future. And in that moment he’s thinking about a kind of brightness that might exist in another realm. The reality is he is caged. But even a death sentence is going to be freeing. So it’s a combination of peace and a kind of hope, a hope for a future, not in this realm.
You mentioned Faith. Isaiah’s suit is a very meaningful part of his story and it is very effective. Did you have any input into picking the suit? Did it have any personal meaning to you?
Lumbly: Yes, I did get a chance. Firstly, I should say when people watch the film they should stay for the credits, because each one of those names represent someone operating at top level to contribute to the overall look/feel/impression that this film leaves. So Gersha Phillips, who did the costumes, presented ideas. “It could look like this. It could look like that.” And the boldness of that [suit], as a young man at that time believing that his life was ahead of him, married, and at that point not even going with the idea of going away or going into the service, but just in the world…
In the comics it starts with them at Negro Week at the New York World’s Fair. And even though for me now, a contemporary individual looking at it, I say, “Okay, that was a sign of the times.” I guess it was a kind progress, a little bit. But for them it was about the future. It was about their presence in America. And the bright promise for every young couple is, “We are going to make our mark and we’re going to leave something for our children.” So that was his “man suit.” It was like plumage.
Is there any part of Isaiah’s story, or just the way you developed the character, that’s really important to playing him that maybe the audience won’t learn about him in this film?
Lumbly: He’s aware of what’s in his blood. And he’s making his way in the world without completely knowing what might be coming. He’s been freed from prison. He is in the process of freeing himself from his own imprisonment. But it’s tentative, right? It is delicate. It’s not something that you just assert. So there is a kind of caution with which he operates.
My father’s biggest piece of knowledge for me, delivered probably every two days, was “measure twice, cut once.” And the idea is to be as thoughtful as you can be so that when you make whatever move you’re going to make it is precise. Not just because you want to be right, but because you don’t want to waste material. You don’t want to make a cut and damage a piece of wood that now you’re going to have to discard and then take another piece of wood. I mean, that’s not the way resources are supposed to be utilized. “Measure twice, cut once.”
That’s been a large part of what Isaiah is doing now because when he was a younger man, he was much more reckless. He had that sense of invincibility that I had as a younger man. So he did whatever needed to be done, and if that was his instinct, if that was his impulse, boom, he was gone. And it cost him.
What did you learn about Harrison Ford that you weren’t expecting?
Lumbly: Oh man. That he’s quiet and thoughtful. My impression was if you are an icon like he is, you expect a certain sort of ballistic force. And nothing could be further from the truth. He was one of the most genteel, courteous, and thoughtful people. He’s just a beautiful cat and he works as hard or harder than anybody. And we were all, I include myself, younger. He is just a joy. And I suppose I didn’t expect it because I thought if anyone was entitled to be… a little full, he would be. I’ve met smaller people who are much more full.
I have to ask this. It’s almost legally required. Isaiah is still really strong and the world has many enemies. Has Marvel talked to you about returning for another film or TV show? And is that something you would want to do?
Lumbly: That would be proprietary information. I can’t speculate or divulge. And I don’t know. I didn’t know after Escape from Alcatraz that I would ever do another film period. I was a stage person and for me doing film and television was about gathering coin for rent. That enabled me to do as much stage as I wanted to do and I thought that was going to be it. So like Isaiah, I don’t know what’s coming.
Considering you have been doing superhero stories for a long time, I imagine you’re a fan of the genre. Is it safe to say that you would be open to coming back as Isaiah Bradley again?
Lumbly: Does the sun rise in the east? :laughs:
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist who has seen Escape from Alcatraz roughly 500 times. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.