Following the big panel in Hall H, co-directors Anthony and Joe Russo, and stars Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Cobie Smulders, Emily VanCamp, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Samuel L. Jackson and Frank Grillo moved over to the Hilton Bayfront to talk further about “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” and specifically about raising the stakes, Cap’s relationship with Black Widow, and the possibility of friendship between him and The Falcon. Check out what the directors and cast had to say about that and more in the press conference highlights below.

Press Conference Highlights

— Film two has a different tone than the first. Co-director Joe Russo explained, “The first film’s sort of a wonderful love letter to the origin of Cap at the time period. Cap is now in the modern world, the movie’s a political thriller, and in order to be germane to that tone, we wanted the movie to be as modern, as edgy, and sort of aggressive as it could be because you can’t have thrills in a thriller unless the characters have real stakes and real jeopardy.”

— Cap and Black Widow have a fighting shorthand. Scarlett Johansson pointed out, “When we find these two characters, we’ve really been working together, it’s in real time, so it’s been two years and we’re both Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Chris pointed out earlier, which I never really thought about, but the fact is, we’re fighting on the ground. It’s not like we have these superpowers that we use and fly around, so we have a similar kind of shorthand between us … They kind of find themselves in a situation where their working relationship become a kind of more intimate friendship … Through this kind of unexpected friendship that forms, they’re starting to question kind of what they want and to question their own identity.”

— It’s no longer just about doing the right thing. Cap is now wondering, what is the right thing? Chris Evans explained, “That’s kind of the hurdle with Captain America, is that his nature is to put himself last. His nature is to take everyone else’s conflict and put it on his back and as a result, it makes it difficult to find an interesting film because most complex characters have flaws … With the first Captain America film it was about getting the opportunity to serve, the opportunity to be a solider, and then in “Avengers,” you have so many other characters … so you can’t really dive too deep into any individual character. In this movie, it’s about showing Cap, now, given the opportunity sir, given the ability to give of himself, the question now becomes, well, what’s right? … The conflict with at least modern society as opposed to the 40s is, what is right? I think in the 40s it was very easy to say, Nazi’s are bad. We can all agree on that. Today, it’s a little bit harder to know, who am I serving? … Where’s the line? What are we willing to compromise in terms of civil liberties to ensure security? And I think that’s where it gets blurry for Cap.”

— Cap has a cell phone. Evans said, “I think you get a little tired if every joke is like, ‘What’s the Internet?’ He gets it, he gets it, he gets it. The problem is, he doesn’t sling jokes. He’s not sarcastic, so it’s hard to find the humor unless the humor is self-deprecating, but you can’t keep playing that one note of, ‘I don’t get it. What’s going on in this modern world?’ He’s up to speed. He knows how things work. He has a cell phone.”

— Emily VanCamp’s lips are sealed. “I can’t say too much about the character, but I think people have a certain idea of who I’m playing and what I’m meant to be playing, but I think they’ll be surprised at how we introduce this character … I can’t say too much about how we introduce her because I guess you just have to go see the movie.”

— Cap and Falcon could be BFFs. Joe Russo recalled, “There was about 5% of Falcon in the film and then we cast Anthony Mackie and now there’s 95% of Falcon.” Mackie joked, “Because I would just show up and walk in the scenes.” More seriously, Russo explained, “It’s a character that’s very personal to us. We were collecting comics since we were kids and one of the first books we ever bought was a Cap/Falcon book … Can’t tell you exactly how much he’s in, but you know, Cap is looking for a friend in the modern world and sort of lost everyone and everything that he knew, and Falcon could be that guy.”

“Captain America: The Winter Solider” arrives in theaters on April 4, 2014.