Sebastian Stan Believes That ‘Mastermind’ Kevin Feige Doesn’t Get Enough Credit For The MCU

In a new video interview looking back on his career, Pam & Tommy star Sebastian Stan had nothing but praise for Marvel Studio head Kevin Feige after being a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe from almost the very beginning. Stan made his MCU debut in Captain America: The First Avenger where he played Bucky, Captain America’s famous sidekick from the comics. Heck, Bucky is up there with Robin in sidekick name recognition.

Obviously, the film put a more modern spin on the character by laying the groundwork for Bucky to become the deadly assassin, the Winter Soldier. Of course, all of this hinged on the early films connecting with audiences and the success of The Avengers. Had the team-up film floundered, the whole MCU would’ve collapsed. Clearly, that didn’t happen, and the MCU became a behemoth blockbuster franchise, and according to Stan, Feige deserves more recognition for the impressive feat. Via Vanity Fair:

I just think Kevin Feige doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves for being the genius mastermind for putting this entire thing together. Every single movie to me feels intricately kind of tied to something else and to another storyline, and there’s a lot to those movies. I think that sometimes they don’t get the credit that they deserve.

To prove Stan’s point, and much to his consternation, he also admitted in the interview that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier would not have happened without Tom Holland’s Spider-Man showing up in Captain America: Civil War. As much as Stan “hates” to credit Holland — the two have been locked in a tongue-in-cheek “feud” for years — the Disney+ series spinning out of Civil War is just another example of Feige’s skill at building an ever-expanding cinematic universe.