The Wrap has an interview with Sebastian Stan who portrays the Winter Soldier in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The actor, who has a nine-picture deal with Marvel discusses when he found out that he would be portraying the Winter Soldier and what he knew of the character’s history:
“I knew about the storyline of the character, and kind of what happens in the comic books; they educated me on the character when we started discussing him, but everything was sort of ‘Knock on wood, if things go well, we’ll see how it goes,’” Stan told TheWrap, referring to the uncertainty surrounding the future of his big screen alter-ego.
As it turns out, the actor found out that Barnes would come back as the villainous Winter Soldier — an amnesiac Soviet assassin — “about two years after we shot the first film,” he said.
So Stan did some recon work himself, working off clues he found both in the comics and in the initial script for the first film. He also did his best not to worry about how the other Marvel films would or could impact his own — even if it boasted crossover stars like Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury) and Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill).
He was just excited to be working with them, he said, and got himself ready to go when the call came.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier comes to theaters tonight.