MCU: 10 Fascinating Facts About Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
9. Nick Fury's Anecdote Had Real Life Origins
Marvel Studios
As Nick Fury introduces Captain America to the next generation of S.H.I.E.L.D. hellicarriers - aka Project Insight - he recalls a story involving his grandfather.
Emphasising the ostensible need for pre-emptive military capabilities, something Rogers decries as "fear... not freedom", Fury mentions how his old relative worked as an elevator operator at an unnamed hotel. On his way home, his grandfather would often get trouble from violent troublemakers, which prompted him to start carrying a handgun. It fails to convince Rogers that Project Insight is more pragmatic than, say, proto-fascist, but part of the story actually has real life origins.
Although Samuel L. Jackson's real-life grandfather didn't carry a gun, he did in fact work as an elevator operator in a hotel.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
