Anthony Mackie talks Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier will see Anthony Mackie join the Marvel family for the first time, with the star taking time out to describe how the experience has been so far.

"I was offered Captain America ," reveals Mackie. "It was just a straight offer. I met with the directors and the producers and talked to them and we were kind of on the same page about what it is we thought the character could be and they really were interested in my input and my ideas."

Now while Mackie is evidently excited about the project, he's refreshingly honest about his reasons for taking the role in the first place.

"You do the Marvel movies to garner you the ability to do the movies that you really want to do," says Mackie. "The other movies, the smaller movies. Doing a movie like Captain America – that puts your name in the mouth of everyone in this country and in the living room of everybody."

And while playing a superhero usually means a hefty spell in the gym, working on body-building saga Pain & Gain has meant Mackie has actually had to become less bulked-up to fit the part.

"I didn’t want to get too bulky," he explains. "There’s a lot of limitations to how big I was for Pain & Gain , whereas with this I just want to be fit, you know. I just want to be in shape to where I can go in and do all the stunts and all the things I feel like I would need to do to bring this character to life.

"I met with the studio very early on and I told them I was going to throw on some weight and get bigger and they said, 'No, no, no, no don’t do that. Stay a smaller weight and we’ll figure out something character-wise.' So, you know, that’s kind of what it turned into."

Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, Captain America: The Winter Soldier opens in the UK on 4 April 2014.