Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

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With Captain America: The First Avenger you brought this incredibly iconic character to the big screen. What were the challenges that came with that character?

Captain America was a unique challenge. We were very aware of how a film at that time - Bush era, Jingoism - would be received and received globally. These movies cost so much that they need to work globally. So we were really careful about - we were worried about it, we were worried about what it might mean to have a character called Captain America, who stands for certain idealisms of the American ideal.

We were worried about how that would be received but we also didn’t want to be untrue to the roots of that character. I’m glad we stuck to our guns and there’s an earnestness and there’s not a cynicism to that character that you see in Steve Rogers to this day. We didn’t know how that would be received but ultimately it was received positively, the idea of a morally good person, a person who is in it for the right reason, and is that person at the beginning of the film and is that person at the end of the film was kind of a challenging road to walk and to see if it would be received.

And also just the notion of a period superhero film, there were a lot of early conversations about should we just shorthand the origin story in World War Two and shortcut to the modern day Cap that you get in Avengers, so the challenge was sticking with our guns to do that and then executing it really well which Joe Johnston and his creative team did amazingly well.

I’m very proud of that film, it’s aging well, I think. There’s a story of timelessness to that film which I really enjoy.