50 Fun Facts About Captain America: the Winter Soldier

Which Marvin Gaye album does Sam Wilson tell Steve Rogers to add to his catch-up list in The Winter Soldier?

Trouble Man, the 1972 soundtrack, is 'everything you missed jammed into one album', Sam says, so Steve writes it down; its title track is playing when he wakes in hospital with Sam at his bedside.

Where does Steve Rogers first meet Sam Wilson in The Winter Soldier?

On an early-morning run: Rogers keeps overtaking Wilson with a breezy 'On your left', and the two veterans bond afterwards over adjusting to life after service.

Who leads the pirates holding a S.H.I.E.L.D. ship hostage at the start of The Winter Soldier?

Georges Batroc taunts Rogers that he thought he was more than just a shield, so the Captain puts it away and beats him hand to hand.

Which S.H.I.E.L.D. project would launch three Helicarriers to kill threats before they can act in The Winter Soldier?

Project Insight never fires on its targets: at the climax the three Helicarriers are turned on one another and destroyed.

What is the name of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters in Captain America: The Winter Soldier?

The Triskelion is wrecked at the climax, when one of the falling Helicarriers ploughs into it.

What does S.H.I.E.L.D.'s wounded director hand Steve Rogers in The Winter Soldier?

A flash drive of the ship's data, pressed on Rogers with a warning to trust no one; it later leads him and Romanoff to a hidden bunker in New Jersey.

Whose preserved consciousness lives in a supercomputer in a New Jersey bunker in The Winter Soldier?

Arnim Zola, recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. after the war, keeps Rogers and Romanoff talking, then admits he has been stalling while a missile closes on the bunker.

Which actor learned The Winter Soldier was named for his character when a friend phoned from Comic-Con?

Sebastian Stan says he did not know whether his character would be brought back at all until Marvel announced the sequel's title in 2012, a year after the first film.

Who is Hydra's leader within S.H.I.E.L.D. in Captain America: The Winter Soldier?

Alexander Pierce poses as Fury's loyal old friend, then brands Rogers a fugitive for refusing to say what the wounded director told him.

Which Hollywood legend plays the S.H.I.E.L.D. official secretly leading Hydra in The Winter Soldier?

Robert Redford said he signed on 'because it's different. It's a new thing for me', and that he wanted to experience the high-tech filmmaking that had taken over.

In The Winter Soldier, what tool lets Hydra pick out the people who might one day threaten it?

A data-mining algorithm judges from people's pasts who might threaten Hydra in future, and the Helicarriers' guns would then pick those people off.

Which S.H.I.E.L.D. agent is captured and revealed as a Hydra mole before the Winter Soldier kills him?

Jasper Sitwell had seemed a loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in Thor and The Avengers; cornered by Rogers's team, he gives up Hydra's plan.

Who is the Winter Soldier revealed to be?

Bucky Barnes, the best friend Rogers believed had died in the war, no longer recognises him, yet hesitates when he has the chance to kill him.

How has Hydra kept the Winter Soldier alive for seventy years?

Brainwashing and cryogenic freezing: between missions Hydra wipes his memory again and puts him back on ice, and it repeats the wipe when he starts to remember.

In The Winter Soldier, how do the heroes plan to stop the three Helicarriers?

Replace their control chips: once Rogers slots in the third, Maria Hill takes over the ships' guns and has them shoot each other down.

Who is Natasha Romanoff disguised as when she ambushes Hydra's leader in The Winter Soldier?

A World Security Council member: wearing a councilwoman's face, she gets close enough to disarm him, then leaks S.H.I.E.L.D.'s classified files to expose Hydra.

Into which river does Steve Rogers fall from a crashing Helicarrier in The Winter Soldier?

The Potomac: the Winter Soldier, who moments earlier was beating him senseless, hauls the unconscious Rogers out of the water and vanishes.

Who fires the shots that kill Hydra's leader inside S.H.I.E.L.D. in The Winter Soldier?

Nick Fury, back from his faked death, forces him to help unlock S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secret files so they can be leaked, then shoots him in the struggle that follows.

Which two test subjects appear in Baron von Strucker's lab in the mid-credits scene of The Winter Soldier?

Wanda and Pietro Maximoff are glimpsed in their cells, near Loki's sceptre, in a scene Joss Whedon wrote and directed himself to set up his next Avengers film.

Where does the Winter Soldier turn up in the post-credits scene?

His own Smithsonian memorial: dressed as a civilian, he stands before the part of the Captain America exhibit devoted to him, trying to learn who he used to be.

Which comics writer's Winter Soldier storyline was the film adapted from?

Ed Brubaker's story so daunted the screenwriters that they took six months to convince themselves they could adapt it; he then turned up on screen as one of the assassin's scientists.

Which 1975 thriller did The Winter Soldier's writers use as the main model for their script?

Three Days of the Condor is a one-man-on-the-run story, and the writers wanted a hero who no longer knows whom to trust, which is why he cannot simply call in powerful friends.

Which sitcom's genre-spoofing episodes led Marvel to seek out the Russo brothers for The Winter Soldier?

Community's paintball finale caught Marvel's eye although the brothers had not even applied for the job; they later had one of its writers, Chris McKenna, add jokes to the script.

Under what working title was Captain America: The Winter Soldier shot?

Freezer Burn was the fake title printed on every sign at the studio, and even on set visitors' name tags, to keep the shoot secret.

Which Ohio city doubled for Washington, D.C. for much of The Winter Soldier's shoot?

Cleveland won the shoot after Ohio approved a $9.5 million tax credit, and Marvel already knew the city from filming The Avengers there.

In The Winter Soldier, where is Steve Rogers when he asks if anyone wants to get out before a fight?

In an elevator: undercover Hydra agents crowd in around him, and he knocks every one of them out and escapes by jumping out of it.

Which future Marvel film hero is named aloud among Hydra's targets in The Winter Soldier?

Stephen Strange is one of the names a captured Hydra mole gives up under interrogation, listing him beside Bruce Banner among the people Hydra means to kill.

What Bible verse on Fury's tombstone in The Winter Soldier nods to Samuel L. Jackson's Pulp Fiction role?

Ezekiel 25:17 is the verse Jackson's hitman recites in Pulp Fiction; the headstone carries its opening words, and the grave is a decoy, since Fury is alive and in hiding.

Which UFC champion plays Batroc in Captain America: The Winter Soldier?

Georges St-Pierre was the UFC's reigning welterweight champion when he was cast, a fitting choice for a character whose fighting style is savate, the French form of kickboxing.

In The Winter Soldier, Black Widow greets a bunker of old computers with a line from which film?

WarGames gave her 'Shall we play a game?', which she says as a joke to a room of dusty old machines, seconds before they wake up and start talking back.

How was Hayley Atwell made to look elderly for her return in The Winter Soldier?

With digital effects: prosthetic tests fell short, so the effects team lifted the wrinkles from an elderly actress's skin and laid them over Atwell's own performance.

Which character does Emily VanCamp play in The Winter Soldier, introduced as Steve Rogers's neighbour?

Sharon Carter is really Agent 13 of S.H.I.E.L.D., posted next door to guard Rogers without his knowledge; she breaks down his door when the shooting starts.

Brock Rumlow, the S.T.R.I.K.E. leader in The Winter Soldier, goes by which alter ego in the comics?

Crossbones is Rumlow's villain identity in the comics; the film leaves him buried in rubble but alive, which set up Frank Grillo's return in the sequel.

Which Winter Soldier actor said he was starting an 11,000-calorie-a-day diet to bulk up for his role?

Anthony Mackie also planned twice-daily workouts for the five months before shooting, all to play the Falcon, a part he had taken before Marvel would let him read a script.

Stan Lee's cameo in The Winter Soldier casts him as what?

A museum security guard: finding Captain America's wartime uniform stolen from its display, he mutters, 'Oh man, I am so fired.'

Which film's April opening-weekend record did The Winter Soldier break?

Fast Five lost April's biggest opening to The Winter Soldier, but its franchise took the record straight back a year later with Furious 7.

Which real leak broke during The Winter Soldier's shoot and made its plot suddenly topical?

The Snowden NSA files broke mid-shoot, yet the film's surveillance plot was already written; as Joe Russo put it, 'It was all leading up to Snowden.'

Captain America: The Winter Soldier earned its only Oscar nomination in which category?

Best Visual Effects went to Interstellar instead; the nod honoured three computer-generated Helicarriers in a film whose directors had pushed for practical stunts.

Which MCU phase does Captain America: The Winter Soldier belong to?

Phase Two's third film reshapes the rest of it: with S.H.I.E.L.D. in ruins, the next Avengers film opens with the team raiding a Hydra base themselves.

The trail in The Winter Soldier leads to which abandoned army camp, where Steve Rogers once trained?

Camp Lehigh, his wartime training ground, became an early S.H.I.E.L.D. base, and the complex hidden beneath one of its bunkers was quietly kept running by Hydra.

Which wartime song plays in Steve Rogers's apartment in The Winter Soldier and again in Avengers: Endgame?

It's Been a Long, Long Time is on the stereo when Rogers comes home to find a wounded Fury waiting in the dark; Endgame brought the same Harry James recording back for his dance with Peggy.

Which film is the direct sequel to Captain America: The Winter Soldier?

Captain America: Civil War reunited the same directors and writers, and its story turns on Rogers hiding the Winter Soldier from the people sent to capture him.

Besides boxing, karate and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which discipline did Chris Evans train in for The Winter Soldier?

Parkour fed the film's acrobatic fights: the filmmakers reasoned that a Rogers brought into the present would have studied and mastered modern fighting styles.

What was Sam Wilson's military job before he met Steve Rogers in The Winter Soldier?

Air Force pararescueman: he flew combat rescues with an experimental wingpack, then left the service to counsel fellow veterans before strapping the wings back on.

Which Avenger did The Winter Soldier's writers consider but drop because 'he didn't have enough to do'?

Hawkeye was in early drafts beside Black Widow, but his scenes were folded into hers, and Joe Russo says scheduling problems helped settle it.

Which effects house built The Winter Soldier's Helicarriers?

Industrial Light & Magic built all three Helicarriers in the computer, inside as well as out, because the script called for every one of them to be torn apart.

Which real programme does Natasha Romanoff cite in The Winter Soldier to explain a Hydra scientist's American career?

Operation Paperclip really did bring German scientists, the rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun among them, to work for the United States after the war, which is why the film's version sounds so plausible.

Steve Rogers's catch-up list in The Winter Soldier changed by country; which TV show headed the US version?

I Love Lucy led the American list, while British prints opened with Sherlock and Korean ones with Dance Dance Revolution; only the last five entries were the same everywhere.

What symbol is painted on the shoulder of the Winter Soldier's metal arm?

A red star, the Soviet emblem, sits on the arm; Romanoff says most of the intelligence world does not believe the assassin who wears it exists, and Rogers calls him a ghost story.

The Winter Soldier places S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters on which real island in Washington, D.C.?

Theodore Roosevelt Island lies under the flight path into Reagan National Airport, so the helicopter crew filming plates for the digital building had to time its passes between jets.