Joe Johnston's 2011 Action Captain America: The First Avenger studiously avoids actual history, creating a curious, secret sub-pocket of World War II where a super-being like Captain America (Chris Evans) could exist. In the film, the Captain doesn't take to the battlefield to fight the actual Axis powers, but a secret cadre of separatist super-Nazis called Hydra. Hydra is ruled by a rogue Nazi named Johann Schmidt, nicknamed "The Red Skull" (Hugo Weaving) due to a facial mutation. He believes in the Führer, but thinks that taking over the world would be easier with magical widgets and super laser guns, which he has access to. Under the cloak of secrecy, Captain America battles Hydra agents and repels their super-weapons.

It was a strange balance to strike. On the one hand, Captain America - in name and appearance - is a central figure of the American military during World War II. On the other hand, everything he does is covered up and hidden from the public. This allowed the film's writers to tell a fantasy story about tesseracts and vibranium without dramatically altering known world history. It also explains why Captain America didn't take down the Third Reich on his own the moment it was created: he was too busy fighting the secret Super Nazis.

Both Captain America and Red Skull were "enhanced" with a special serum called Super Solider Serum. They both went from skinny and angry to overly muscular and acrobatic. In the mythos of the film, the serum was developed by scientist Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), who developed it in Germany in the 1930s and then escaped the Nazi regime, gaining new employment with the US military. Erskine was a key figure in the development of the famous superhero.

In 2025, Tucci returns to Captain America in an interview with Varietyand he remembered Dr. Erskine with affection. However, there was one detail he objected to: Erskine was 70 years old, while Tucci, at the time, was only 50.

Actual anti-Semitism is not explicitly mentioned in Captain America: The First Avenger. It is implied that Dr. Erskine is Jewish and has fled his hometown of Augsburg, Germany to escape persecution, but the closest explicit clue the audience gets to his religion is a passing reference Erskine makes to the fact that "after the last war , my people were struggling." This was another way the filmmakers took a snarky edge from an otherwise light-hearted adventure film set against the backdrop of World War II. It is a political film without politics. It's strange.

While the film may have been a little vague about the character's personal trials, Tucci loved appearing in Captain America and loved his character. Tucci appeared in both small, low-budget indies and mega-budget super-blockbusters, and seems adept at adapting to both worlds. Erskine was a great figure who was allowed to deliver vital exposition to the title character and was present in many of the film's early scenes.

The only question: Dr. Erskine is 70 years old. Tucci is still a bit baffled that casting directors looked at his 50-year-old face and assumed he could easily play a man two decades older. To quote:

“(Yes) you also have the fun big movies that you make. I loved Captain America: The First Avenger. It was one of the biggest roles and jobs I've ever had at 50, so it was upsetting, but that's okay, I was flattered and insulted at the same time ... You have to mix it up, as they say.

It's a credit to Tucci's talents that he was able to play a 70-year-old so deftly without much notice from fans or critics. He is adaptable and capable in most respectseven if the fact that the filmmakers thought he could play a man 20 years his senior might have hit him a little too hard in his vanity.