Anthony Mackie Recounts Real-Life Twisted Metal-Style Car Crash: "It Was The Craziest"

Life imitated art late last month when Anthony Mackie found himself in the middle of a sudden vehicular crash worthy of his Twisted Metal character, John Doe.

"Driving in Atlanta is the best video game you’ve ever played in your life," the actor — who thankfully came away from the accident unscathed (as far as we know, none of the involved parties were seriously injured) — said during a recent interview with Inverse.

Mackie was in Georgia at the time of the near-death incident for production on Marvel Studios' Captain America: Brave New World (opening in theaters everywhere next summer). He had just gotten off work and was on his way home after grabbing a bite to eat. "I was smoking a cigar. I was driving slow. I was enjoying life, listening to Whitney Houston. It was a great evening."

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That's when he saw another car speeding up behind him at around 100 miles an hour. Mackie merged toward the center lane in order to let them pass, but the other driver somehow lost control of her car, which spun into the guard rail.

"The front of her car just implodes," he remembered. "Boom."

The front axle and tires broke away and skidded into the middle lane. With another car coming up on his left (a classic Sam Wilson experience), the blockbuster lead made a split-second decision: stay the course and collide with the oncoming wreckage.

"The car went over the axle and hit the tire, and the axle picked me up and just launched me into the air,” he continued. "So I’m flying. I’m high enough to where I can look down on her car." Once his own car found solid ground again, its hood popped off and went flying through the air. "It was the craziest sequence of events I’ve ever experienced."

Fortunately, Mackie had spent all of last summer in the shoes of an expert driver for Peacock's Twisted Metal adaptation (all 10 episodes premiere July 27). Speaking to Rolling Stone earlier this month, the actor revealed that he did a number of his own stunts for the show.

"I went to my driving instructor, and I was like, 'This is stuff I want to learn… I want to spend more time on track than on the set.' So, a lot of that stuff I got to practice and learn and bought a little sh***y car and put it on a track and just ran into walls until I had a good idea of what I was doing."

Twisted Metal premieres July 27 on Peacock.

Want more original Peacock content in the meantime? Be sure to check out Bel-Air, Killing It, A Friend of the Family, Poker Face, Joe vs. Carole, Mrs. Davis, MacGruber, and Based on a True Story.