Sebastian Stan Assumed He Was Finished After ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ Due to Day-of Production Change

Sebastian Stan figured he was one-and-done in the Marvel Universe after Captain America: The First Avenger.

Going over his career timeline with Vanity Fair for a video published Monday, the actor revealed that a change made on the day of a major scene signaled that Bucky Barnes was a one-shot deal.

Of course, fans know now that is not the case, but Stan explained that in 2011, there was still a healthy amount of uncertainty about the future of superhero projects.

“I certainly did not know that I would be playing the role for 10 years,” Stan told Vanity Fair. “I remember going in for the Steve Rogers [Chris Evans] role and not getting it. And then being told about this role and where it could go. But it didn’t seem like there was any commitment, really.”

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As Stan tells it, Bucky was to lose his arm in Captain America: The First Avenger, which gave him some level of confidence that he would be back in the future — as the lost arm was a setup to Bucky’s transformation into the Winter Soldier character. Then, there was a sudden change of plans on the day Stan shot a scene in which Bucky falls off a train to his apparent death.

“I knew at the end of the story, I was going to fall off this train, and then I was going to be given this green sleeve [for CGI purposes],” Stan explained. “That was the only indication I had that I could potentially be coming back. But no one said anything to me. Then, on the day we were shooting that scene, they were like, ‘Yeah, we’re not going to be doing that green sleeve.’ And I just thought, ‘Oh. That’s it. I’m just going to die on that train. There’s no coming back.’ But they just didn’t know what arm they were going to use or something, and it kept going from there.”

It “kept going,” to say the least, as Stan would play reprise the character seven more times (and counting) in Marvel Cinematic Universe films, both in main stories and in end-credit cameos. He would also play Bucky in the Emmy-nominated Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Watch Stan’s full career timeline video below.