There has been plenty of talk in the lead up to Captain America: Civil War about the movie being a direct sequel to Captain America: The Winter Soldier and not another Avengers movie. Not that there is anything wrong Avengers movies, but they all can not be mega movies to keep it special when it does happen.

Civil War will have a plethora of characters, even more than the Avengers films, but make no mistake, this movie is all about continuing the story of Steve Rogers. During their site visit, IGN was able to interview some of the actors and crew members involved in the movie.

Since the movie is the latest solo film for Captain America, Chris Evans gave plenty of interesting quotes about what is in store. Even though there are plenty of other characters stuffed in his latest movie, this is definitely still Cap’s movie and we will see it that way.

Evans: You look at the cast, and you ask how are they going to spread this story around, but they still do a good job of exploring Cap’s throughline. We left a lot off in The Winter Soldier. There’s still a lot left unresolved between [Cap and Bucky]. And I think the friction between myself and Downey, given where Marvel is goanna go in the next Avengers film, there’s a lot of ripe avenues to pursue. But I still think Cap is the anchor.

At the end of Winter Soldier, we saw Cap and Falcon starting their journey to find Bucky. This has proven unsuccessful to this point as he is still missing, which is right where we find them at the start of this movie.

Evans: Still on the search for Bucky. That’s the thing about these movies. You go do The Avengers, you gotta put your own plot on hiatus for a second, and then we try to pick up where we left off. A big piece of that is searching for Bucky. But at the same time, we left off [Age of Ultron] with a new team of Avengers. So they’re still trying to break in the new members. And I think it’s no secret that what happens is there’s a world around them that expects a little bit more responsibility for their actions. The Avengers have been operating independent of any government restriction, so I think there’s plenty of people that makes nervous. I don’t think I’m giving anything away by saying what happens is certain governments expect a bit of a change.

Steve’s desire to find his lost best friend will be a major focus of the story and something that will drive him this time around. As for just how important the relationship between Cap and Bucky is,

Evans: [It] Is central. Any other person who has gone through what Cap is going through, I think there’d be a lot more…they’d probably bleed on people a bit more. Cap’s such a selfless guy, he kinda stuffs all that down, which is a shame because there’s a lot of good meat on the bone to chew on. In this one we get to explore that struggle a bit more. I can’t say too much, but this is a huge relationship. This is a huge piece of his history, it’s a huge piece of his struggle, not just to have someone that he can connect to on a friendship level, but just the guilt that he must have. ‘I let you go. I’m sorry.’ Just the survivor’s guilt element. So there’s plenty to play with. They certainly do explore it.

This journey will not be one that everyone is 100% on board with. Cap may be looking for his friend, but also a guy with a long history of murder. Even if some people are against this decision, they do understand it.

Evans: They sympathize. They certainly sympathize. Cap’s done nothing but give himself to this group, so I think they understand the value of what it means to me to find him. And especially after [Hawkeye’s] been brainwashed, [Black Widow’s] been misled… We’ve all had our share of being taken advantage of, so I don’t think they hold him completely responsible for some of his actions.

There have been plenty of plot rumors about what events could happen that will change the MCU forever. Even if those do not pan out, the Russo brothers have been very good exploring the emotional stakes for characters. As they explore the story, they will push Cap to new highs or possibly lows.

Anthony Russo: We found a way to really get at the heart of who Cap is to shake his foundation and push him somewhere I think that’s going to surprise a lot of people.

As for Bucky’s story, he will certainly test the characters involved. Producer Nate Moore talked about how divisive he will be.

Moore: And now this very true free radical shows back up. We don’t know if he’s a good guy. Is he a bad guy? Does he remember everything? Does he remember nothing? Cap is going to have a very different reaction to that than, say, Widow or Tony or Falcon or Vision, because he’s a bad guy to most of the world except for Cap, who goes, ‘That’s my best friend.’ So I think that’s the dynamic of the movie that’s really fun, is we’re already splitting the team and now they have to deal with this third party.

In the Civil War comic, the Registration Act is instituted following an explosion in Stamford that killed hundreds of people. Speedball and the New Warriors will not be responsible for the start of it this time, and if the rumors are true, then we may already know who starts it. Either way, writer Stephen McFeely confirmed that an event will set Civil War into motion.

McFeely: There will be a Stamford incident but it’s not Stamford. We’ll have an incident that will force the governments of the world to go, ‘Wait a second. Let’s talk about the laundry list of things that we’re not happy about. Let’s finally do something about that. We think you guys need some oversight.’

Leaving out the Stamford incident is not the only thing that will be different between the comic and the movie. McFeely and his writing partner Christopher Markus kept the nature but changed the goal.

McFeely: It’s more about oversight than unmasking or outing anyone

Markus: Which in a way, was what the comic book was about. The unmasking was a way to register people. I think we found a way to also make the sides very personal so it’s not just this polemic argument where it’s, ‘I believe we should be registered.’

With so many characters appearing in the movie, it will be a difficult task to bring everyone in and not make them feel like unnecessary cameos. Moore addressed this issue and how they bring everyone in organically.

Moore: [Ant-Man’s] pulled in for a very specific reason by a person who had prior experience with him. Hawkeye, again, when you think about these films, these people have built relationships with each other… ‘So even though I may retire, if you call me for help, I’ll probably come and help.’ So you start to lean on the interpersonal dynamics of the characters and go, ‘OK. What would be the reason for Clint, who just had a kid at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron, to [return]…’ How do you pull them back into a story that feels organic and natural and interesting and really, again, puts the pressure on the relationships with the characters? And we think we found a really interesting way to do that.

When the sides collide, it will not be all fun and games. In fact, it will be very ugly with deep motivations for each character. As Joe Russo explains, not everyone will make it till the end whether it be for health or personal reasons, but those who do, do not pull their punches.

Joe Russo: There’s an intensity in this film. We dug deep to find motivations that were extremely personal and very emotional to the characters. It’s not [personal] for all characters, because like any fight, people take sides and some people have stronger motivations than others, and as the fight gets worse people drop out because they don’t have the stomach for it. But we have a couple characters that go to the end and they go to the end pretty hard and pretty ugly.

Captain America: Civil War is scheduled to hit theaters May 6, 2016.

Source: IGN.