James Gunn helped sell ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ star on the MCU

Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney

At this stage, you don’t need to play the full Six Degrees of Separation (or even Kevin Bacon, for that matter) to name an actor who knows an actor who was involved with the Marvel Cinematic Universe in one way or another.

For The Falcon and the Winter Soldier‘s debuting Wyatt Russell, you’d have thought dad Kurt would have been the obvious port of call given that the screen legend played Ego the Living Planet in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. However, Russell Jr. revealed in an interview with Collider that it was actually the cosmic sequel’s director he spoke to in depth first.

“I knew a couple of people who had done it. The person that I called and that I really listened to the most was James Gunn. We became friendly because he produced a movie that my wife (Meredith Hagner) was in, called Brightburn. James is just a great filmmaker, and I’ve always deferred to great filmmakers. They’re the ones who are making the movies and they’re the ones who have their hands on all the buttons, so they have contact in every area and experience in every area.

I really did lean on his opinion of what the character was. I didn’t know much about the character when I got it, and he just gave great advice. He said, “Look, they’re great to work with. They make sure that it’s good.” Coming from him, that vote of confidence really did make me feel like, “Okay, we can make this good. I can make this character fun. I can make him interesting. I can make people enjoy hating to watch or enjoy watching this character because he’ll have many different things going on. And they’re allowing me to do that. They want the conflict.” That was really the person I leaned the most on.”

Of course, Russell did speak to his old man about his MCU experiences, too, so it’s not as if Kurt was completely shut out of the decision-making process. Based on how much fans hated John Walker when he showed up in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the actor made the right call in agreeing to board the franchise.