Part of The Avengers featuring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, and Mark Ruffalo.
Rise to Fame
Before Marvel cast him, he had $65,000 in Hot Tub Time Machine residuals as his financial cushion, which tells you where the career was. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) gave him Bucky Barnes, a secondary role that didn't look like a lottery ticket at the time. The Winter Soldier arc changed the math. He stayed in the franchise through multiple films and the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021), which finally gave him lead billing. He has said the franchise was 'only step one' in what he wanted to do as an actor.
In the Spotlight
In 2024 he put out two films that pushed him well outside the franchise lane. In A Different Man he plays an actor with a facial disfigurement who undergoes a transformation, only to envy the person he left behind. The role won him a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. The Apprentice, casting him as a young Donald Trump, earned his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Two nominations in one awards cycle, from two radically different films. The industry's surprise was audible, which wasn't entirely flattering to the expectations they'd built around him.
Side Notes
He was born in Constanta, Romania, moved to Vienna at eight, and landed in New York's Rockland County at twelve when his mother remarried. The acting instincts didn't come from nowhere: he studied at Shakespeare's Globe in London and had Broadway credits before Marvel found him, including Talk Radio (2007) and Picnic (2013). When he accepted his Golden Globe, he closed in Romanian: 'Romania, te iubesc.' It was a small thing that landed differently than anything else he said that night.