{"id":5251,"date":"2025-04-29T14:52:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T14:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/5251\/"},"modified":"2025-04-29T14:52:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T14:52:11","slug":"wyatt-russells-hockey-past-affected-his-thunderbolts-performance-in-a-surprising-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/5251\/","title":{"rendered":"Wyatt Russell\u2019s Hockey Past Affected His Thunderbolts Performance In a Surprising Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before he was an actor, Wyatt Russell was a professional ice hockey player, and he acknowledges that his background may have influenced his portrayal of John Walker in the MCU. Russell plays the soldier who was chosen to become the new Captain America before disgracing himself and becoming a vigilante with the alias \u201cU.S. Agent.\u201d The character\u2019s overzealous approach to peacekeeping was a central part of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Russell sought to convey some recklessness in his movement. At the premiere of Thunderbolts*,<\/a> he told The Hollywood Reporter that he drew on his hockey experience to inform that kind of performance.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tVideos by ComicBook.com\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

When asked if hockey had influenced his portrayal of John Walker,<\/a> Russell mused, \u201cMaybe, a little bit,\u201d noting, \u201cI\u2019ve been so far removed from hockey now, any muscle memory I had from that is pretty much gone. But there was some physicality that I think helps. Anything with sports, like, it helps.\u201d Thinking about the question out loud, he recalled conversations with his stunt double about how Walker would move.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked a lot \u2014 my stunt performer Justin Eaton \u2014 about carrying himself, and how he would do that,\u201d he recalled. \u201cIt always was like, \u2018bull in a China shop,\u2019 and I did reflect a lot on a couple of the people that I played with that will remain nameless. How they conduct themselves on the ice.\u201d<\/p>\n

[RELATED: John Walker Is a Much More Fascinating Character than the MCU Showed Us<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Without much prompting, Russell was convinced to name names after all. \u201cMilan Lucic is one of them,\u201d he said, then looked into the camera to address his former teammate directly. \u201cLuc, you\u2019re in there as part of it. So, yeah, I did call on some of my past, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sports Mentality<\/p>\n

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On a less obvious note, Russell thought that his experience in professional hockey had helped him convey the \u201cvulnerability\u201d of Walker\u2019s fall from grace and his struggles with self doubt. He recalled that he and other players avoided showing any \u201ccrack in the armor,\u201d because \u201ceven if your coach took it well, now he knows you\u2019re not feeling good, or now he knows you\u2019re doubting yourself, and any bad thing that happens, you can be looked at very differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is that that you\u2019re not going to become a better, fully-realized version of yourself until you could admit your shortcomings,\u201d he went on. \u201cSo, that was fun to play, and it was fun to play [Walker\u2019s] sort of cracks, his vulnerability, and humor. That was fun for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

It sounds like Walker\u2019s story will be getting a lot deeper in his second MCU appearance, and there\u2019s still more to come in Avengers: Doomsday. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is streaming now on Disney+, and Thunderbolts* hits theaters around the U.S. on Friday, May 2nd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before he was an actor, Wyatt Russell was a professional ice hockey player, and he acknowledges that his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,2536,2537,2538,2539],"class_list":{"0":"post-5251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-john-walker-us-agent","10":"tag-regular-news","11":"tag-thunderbolts-2025","12":"tag-wyatt-russell"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114421821852514948","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}