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William Mark McCullough plays Commander Dunphy, aka Demolition Man, in “Captain America: Brave New World”. Demolition Man is a beloved Marvel Comics character usually relegated to the shadows, so it was a pleasant surprise to see him in the film.
McCullough shares his longtime love for Captain America and Marvel Comics, how he got into acting, what he thinks of the MCU going forward, and stories about working with Anthony Mackie.
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Photo by Josh Stringer
You were a fan of “Captain America” growing up, right?”
“Oh yeah. I mean, I was a fan of all the Marvel comics. I kind of collected all of them, but “Captain America” was definitely my favorite.”
So, did you know who Demolition Man was going into this?
“I did. I was familiar with Demolition Man. But I didn’t realize when I first booked the role, that wasn’t the name that was given for me. So I found out much later the character I was actually playing, which was kind of a fun surprise for me. You know, Marvel understandably keeps things under wraps a lot to keep things from getting leaked”
Were you disappointed you didn’t get to wear the kind of Daredevil/Wolverine mash-up outfit?
“Yeah. I mean, here’s the thing, there’s nothing about working on that movie that was disappointing. I had a blast. You know, I think the little kid in me would love to put that crazy fun uniform on, but really even until the most recent movie with Wolverine, he didn’t even get to wear the cowl until then.”
Getting into your career before acting. Not sure if this is accurate, but you have a political science degree, you have a law degree, and you were working on Capitol Hill, but you completely pivoted your career path after a car accident. Can you talk about that?
“Sure. I went to college and studied political science and had to take an acting class as an elective, with no interest in it whatsoever. I remember I took the first class and I got an assignment to do a monologue. I did the monologue and I just fell in love with it. I was, like, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing,” but I didn’t learn how to get a job, how to turn my love for acting into an actual career. So when I got out of school I did what a lot of folks do which is go to law school and try to buy three more years to figure things out.
As a young man, I really thought I was interested in politics, and I worked on Capitol Hill for a very, very short period of time, and I realized I like political philosophy, not politics.
But I’d taken a trip down to Nicaragua and it was literally just a little vacation, and I was in a really bad car accident and spent about five weeks in a hospital there. Lying in that hospital bed, it just made me realize I was on this path that I wasn’t passionate about. As soon as I healed up, I got back to D.C., and quit my job and moved to LA and started what I lovingly refer to as my Ramen Noodle Years. A lot of struggle.”
Did you fight for a part in the “Captain America” movie when you heard it was coming?
“You know there’s only so much an actor can do to fight for a part. My reps knew that I’m a huge Marvel fan and what I told them was ‘I will say one line in a Marvel movie. I don’t care.’ You know, usually actors try to control the size of the roles, and I was just, like, ‘Look, I’ll sleep in my car in the parking lot.’ As a fan of the franchise, I didn’t care.”
Are you a fan of the whole MCU?
“I mean, some I like a lot more than others, like everybody. I was hooked, I mean, I love the original “Hulk” films. I’ve been a fan since the beginning. I remember when “Iron Man” hit. Iron Man was certainly one of the lower-tier characters for me as a kid. It was fine, he just wasn’t one of my top characters, so I wasn’t super excited about the movie until I sat down and actually started watching it and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is actually really good.'”
Did you enjoy working with Anthony Mackie?
“Oh my gosh. Anthony Mackie is, number one, the funniest dude I’ve ever worked with in my life. He is the most down-to-earth A-list actor I’ve ever worked with, and I’ve been very fortunate to work with a lot of big names, and most of them are very, very kind. But Anthony just walks on set with this energy.
He just makes you feel like…my very first day on set, he made me feel like I was part of the family, you know, he’s the number one on the call sheet, and he was just so kind and warm and welcoming.
I’m a big fan of cigars. He’s a big fan of cigars, and on my very first day of filming, you know, we’re talking about this, and later in the afternoon he comes up and gives me a cigar and he says, “Hey, this is my favorite one. Let me know what you think. And that is just, you know, that’s going so far to make a guy whose first day on this huge film just feel part of it.
The biggest issue I had working with Anthony was he would make me laugh so much between takes … because you see in the movie, it’s, I’m not playing a funny character, but it would just be so, I mean, I just remember laughing and laughing and laughing and we get ready to roll camera and it was just kind of like, OK, let me focus now, let me stop laughing.
But you know, he’s one of those guys that, I would do a terrible movie just to get the opportunity to work with him again because he was just such a cool guy to work with, yeah.”
As far as what ended up in the theater, you didn’t have any scenes with him, but did you get a chance to meet Harrison Ford?
“I did not. I got to meet most of the other actors, and of course, you know, good lord, Harrison Ford, that’s, he’s an icon. I would have liked to have met him and gosh, I would love to work with him, but it was cool to like see his work in the film. I thought he did a great job.”
Since you’re a fan of the multiverse saga and all these different versions of different characters showing up, do you think there’s a chance we might see Demolition Man again?
“You know, I have no idea what Marvel plans to do. Those are very talented folks and they know what they know the plan they’re doing, they know their story. I was very pleasantly surprised to see kind of a lot of uproar about the character. I thought it would be a nice fun homage to like the hardcore, you know, long term fans of Captain America. But it’s kind of cool seeing, you know, a lot of people seem to really like, Demolition Man and the comics and, and we’re cheering for him. So if they call me back, I would drop everything and I’d be there, but, you know, it’s not up to me, so.”
Are there any specific films you’re looking forward to that are upcoming in the MCU?
“I think Thunderbolts is gonna be great. I mean, the trailer looks amazing. I love that, that energy of kind of bringing all these anti-heroes together to work on it.
I’m very curious about Fantastic Four. It looks like they’ve done a, kind of like that, that retro 1960s futuristic thing, so we’ll see.
I love Blade. I remember the old-school Blade I love, so I’d love to see them, you know, pull that out.”
You mentioned “Fantastic Four.” Do you have any opinions about Robert Downey Jr returning to Marvel?
“I thought that was a really interesting choice, you know, it caught me completely by surprise.
I mean, again, Doctor Doom. You know, that’s such a great character in the comics. I’m sure, you know, Robert Downey Jr would do a phenomenal job playing him, but I’m very curious how they’re going to deal with that, you know, the fact that it’s the same actor playing this completely different character. I mean, it gives them a lot of, a lot of freeway, but, yeah, I don’t know.”
I assume you’ve seen all the other “Captain America” movies. So how do you think “Brave New World” fits among the other MCU films?
Well, you know, it’s a little hard when you’re in it, right? I mean, you know, like it’s kind of like, I don’t have kids, but, you know, hey, what is your favorite kid?
I love the first one, you know, set in World War 2, I thought that was so cool. The origin of Steve Rogers, Captain America. Obviously everyone loves “Winter Soldier”, you know, I mean it’s a classic to me.”
A lot of the reviews haven’t been going great. Well, not all of them, they’re kind of split. It seems like a lot of them are split down the middle. Do you think that superhero fatigue is a big part of that?
I don’t think so. I mean, you look at the audience reviews, the audience scores are great, right?
I think of some of my favorite movies of all time, they’re not loved by critics, you know what I mean? So I don’t know why critics fall one way or the other. But I don’t know what the reviews were on, you know, other films that have done well, but to me what matters is the audience happy. The audience is showing up to watch it, right?
With Brave New World kind of in the rearview mirror, what’s next for you?
“Well, as far as what I have coming out, I did a movie last year called “Final Hour”, and it’s about a man on death row, literally hours before he’s gonna be put to death. I play the guy on death row, and a priest comes to give him last rites, and we learned that the priest, it was his family that my character had murdered years earlier, so it really plays like an intense, almost like a play, 80percent of the movie is in a jail cell between me and this priest. It’s a super simple…it is the opposite of Captain America, right? It is simple. It’s literally just character dialogue-driven. There’s no action or anything. I’ve got that coming out.
They’re doing a spinoff of “Bosch”, the Amazon Prime show, called “Ballard”. I’m gonna be in that. I think that comes out in May.
And, you know, I’m also a filmmaker and so I’m getting ready… I developed a TV series that we’re, we’re hopefully gonna go into production later this year.”
Thank you for taking the time to talk about “Brave New World” and your other projects.
“Thank you for having me. This was such a blast. You know, I love, you know, I love doing interviews with people who really know the comics and really know the stories. That’s a lot more fun.”
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