"Oh Captain, My Captain!!!"

Chris Evans started off his career parodying the cliché teen jock in Not Another Teen Movie before making it big with The Fantastic Four films. He managed to parlay that success of that into films like The Nanny Diaries, Push, Street Kings, and The Losers.

Now, the 30 year-old hopes to make his greatest mark in the world of comics as the title character in Captain America: The First Avenger. The actor talks about not only being offered the role of the ultimate superhero patriot, but pursued.

“It’s nice,” he replies, “It’s nice. I don’t know what to say. It doesn’t suck. I don’t know. It’s good. Shall I segue-way into the process of the offering, taking the part story? Is that what it is, leading question? They initially talked about me coming into audition. I thought, great. It was exciting. I kind of digested a little bit. The commitment was huge and there was sure to be a lifestyle change that I wasn’t sure if I was after. And I kind of thought about it, I said I’m OK, good. I’ve done the Marvel thing. I don’t want to upset fans and I’m OK. I’m pretty happy with where my life is and probably this is not what I want to do. And they kind of came back and said, ‘Maybe you should reconsider,’ and blah blah blah.”

“And I met with [producer] Kevin [Feige] and [director] Joe [Johnston],” Evans continues, “If it was in a vacuum, if it was just one job, if it was just one gig, if it was the people involved, these people are fantastic. Kevin, Joe, these are the kind of people you want to make movies for. It’s the other strings attached that made it kind of a difficult choice. And the more I thought about it, the more I just said, Chris, maybe you should face your fear. Because this it was it was, it was a fear-based rejection.

"Oh Captain, My Captain!!!"

It was just kind of nerve-racking. Ten years is a long time if you make all six pictures. Who could make a decision for the next ten years of their lives? Anybody? Not really. But I did.”

Evans elaborated on the lifestyle commitment he would have to adhere to in agreeing to doing the franchise.

“Not being able to go to the gym, go to the grocery store, walk down the street without people kind of recognizing me,” Chris says, “My life has been great up to, not that it’s bad now. It’s been saturated in anonymity and it’s tricky to all of a sudden realize that you can deal with ‘some of the time’, you can deal with ‘most of the time’, ‘all the time’, it’s a tricky thing to swallow. And I’ve seen ‘all the time’. I have friends and I’ve witnessed what ‘all the time’ means. What do you do on a Sunday? What if where you went, somebody’s going to walk up to you and want something from you, which is OK sometimes, you know what I mean? I knew what I was doing getting into this business. I made my bed, I got to sleep in it. It’s OK, if you’re a 12 year-old kid, it’s great, make his day, but it’s not always that. Sometimes, it’s a 40 year-old dude who’s like, ‘Hey, bro.’ You’re like, ‘I’m just trying to work out,’ or ‘I got a hangover.’ It’s just sometimes you want privacy. Or even, take it one step further, what if something bad was going on in my life, what if my mom was in the hospital, or what if something good, what if I was getting married or had a kid. There are certain moments that you want for yourself. That’s it. There’s no rewind, there’s no off switch, so it’s real hard to conceptualize what all the time is like when it’s not all the time. Like I

"Oh Captain, My Captain!!!"

said, I’ve been lucky enough to have been around ‘all the time’. I’ve seen ‘all the time’ and it’s amazing the things that have to change, there are things that you just can’t do. It’s just you always have to be aware, you have to be aware of what you’re doing and what you’re saying and things can get twisted.”

“I bet I’ll read one of these interviews and I’ll be like, I didn’t say that. I didn’t mean that. It was taken out of context,” he adds, “So, ‘all the time’, it’s just different. And the way that my life had been led up until last year, it was movies, one at a time, and if it ever got out of control, if I didn’t like it, you can step away, reassess, and choose whether you go back into it or not. This was the type of thing where if you do it, too bad, you got to come back, we’re doing a sequel, we got another one of these, and then, it was going to be a matter of navigating something that was going to be out of my control, and that’s scary and intimidating. Now, granted, let’s be real, there’s no guarantee that these movies are going to be giant successes and the truth is the attention comes in waves. This week is obviously going to be rough, but six months from now, it’ll die down, and I’ll probably be able to go back to work and out in peace and go to the grocery store. But even still, it’s a compromise and it’s something that you can’t undo. So it’s not just a decision you are not just making for yourself. It’s a decision that you’re making for a lot of people in your life and it’s just scary. I don’t have anything more romantic to say then it’s just scary.”

In the film, his character Steve Rogers is a frail, weak man

"Oh Captain, My Captain!!!"

who is chosen in a “super-soldier” experiment during World War II to become the Cap. Chris talks about the transition into superhero.

“Well, my youth, if you seen pictures of me as a child, it’s not too dissimilar to the way I look in the film,” he says, “Everyone is like, is this strange seeing yourself as a 98 lb.? No, this is what I looked like until I was 17. So understanding what it feels like to be small and slight wasn’t too difficult, but when I initially signed on board and talked to Joe and Joe was like, ‘I think what we’re going to do for the small stuff, we’re going to hire a smaller actor and put your head on his body.’ And I thought about it and the best thing is that Joe and Kevin and everyone, as I said, is the best people you can possibly work for. They’re wonderful at having a conversation. It’s not like it’s their way or the highway.”

“And I said, ‘Look, I don’t mean to be some snobby, bougie actor,’” Evans continues, “I know how I feel about sharing the performance. I think that the early stuff, the skinny stuff is when the audience will hopefully fall in love with the character. If you like the guy then, you hope in the last frame of the film, you still see the skinny guy,’” Evans adds, “So I kind of felt adamant that I wanted this to be my performance. This wasn’t something I wanted to share. Luckily, I think they did some tests with the head replacement and even though the head replacement was a bit easier and cheaper, I think. I don’t know this. You have to ask Joe and Kevin. It didn’t look as good as the shrinking down stuff. The shrinking down stuff was just amazing. It’s really just amazing. The scenes that you need to know, I’ll watch a scene and that’s

"Oh Captain, My Captain!!!"

me. I remember doing these things and it’s amazing what they are able to do. And not just your body, but they took my jaw line and my frame in. Even if I lost weight, it wouldn’t have mattered. They did things that couldn’t do with just weight loss.”

As hinted from the title, the Captain America film’s ending is designed as an immediate setup to a film adaptation of The Avengers, which is the superhero team that the Cap later joins up with, to be released May 4th of next year. Evans was asked if there was anytime to cleanse the palette inbetween films.

“There was no time to cleanse the palette,” he replies, “We finished Captain America last December. We had off until March and we did a few weeks of reshoots for Captain America. And actually, for continuity sake, it actually worked out. Our last scene of reshoots for Captain America was the final bit with myself and Sam Jackson which segueways seamlessly. And I think the first thing I shot in The Avengers is the very first scene of The Avengers, so I guess there really wasn’t a need for the palette to be cleansed.”

“But what is tricky is the film didn’t get to come out yet, so it’s always nice to have the film come out and gauge some reactions and see what you can do to make your performance better, see what people liked and what they didn’t like, and adjust accordingly,” Chris adds, “So that’s too bad, but it kind of makes this better. I struggle with this stuff. This is the stuff I knew was going to happen taking this job. This isn’t just any other movie. This is the stuff where you’re going to have to do weeks of this, but while we were on The Avengers, it doesn’t feel like you’re alone, if that makes sense. I mean, you feel like even if I have to quarterback

"Oh Captain, My Captain!!!"

this operation solo, it still feels like I have a team with me. This feels like a part of something bigger. It helps carry the load in a weird way.”

Chris was asked if there were any significant changes to the Cap’s personality planned for The Avengers film.

“Sure, yeah, well, he is who he is,” Evans replies, “I think that’s why he got picked for this serum. I think he has a clear-cut sense of his morals and values and who he is. But there clearly is an adjustment process to modern day. I think part of Cap’s appeal is that he kind of represents this old way of thinking.”

“There’s no denying that modern…I almost never talk on the phone, I text,” he continues, “I almost never write letters, I e-mail. There’s almost become more of an impersonal connection between people. I think Cap comes from a place where things were a little more wholesome and sincere and direct and I think modern day, to him, feels a little more flash and style and that’s not who he is.”

It is asked whether there is a crotchety, ‘get off my lawn’ kind of disposition to the Cap’s personality for the film.

“Well, we don’t want to make him an old guy who’s like, ‘What’s an e-mail?’” Evans replies, “It’s not like every single scene, he’s just this complete…I mean, he’s adjusting. It’s not just that. It’s that everyone he knows is dead. This guy woke up and the people he fought wars with his brothers are gone. Every person that he knew in the world is dead. That alone is a bit of a shellshock, so you blend those two things together and he’s struggling in the beginning. He’s just struggling to adapt.”

Evans was asked if he was satisfied with the final cut of Captain America.

“You really got to look at, yeah, let’s be real, I’m not in the coal mines,” he answers, “I’m not like, ‘This

"Oh Captain, My Captain!!!"

is so difficult.’ It really is great. This is a really great time in my life. I mean, that’s an even longer list than the reasons I was apprehensive about…I can’t even begin. I get to do what I love. I’m not in the coalmines. I get to come into work and work with Stanley Tucci and Tommy Lee Jones and I get to put on a superhero costume.”

“Who didn’t run around without a bed sheet around their neck, come on?” Chris continues, “It’s easier to put into words the negative side because it’s so much smaller. The positives are just so massive. It’s so great. Life can be so much worse. I have microphones in front of me. I can be flipping burgers right now. It can be so much worse. I wouldn’t know where to begin. I guess it’s cliché, but I do what I love and I get paid. And if you do that, you’ll never have a day of work in your life.”

Chris was asked if there was a moment in the film where he was awestruck at seeing his presence on the silver screen watching it around his family.

“If you seen some of my other films, they are not that great,” Evans replies, “The first time I was like, ‘That’s me, mom,’ I had a banana up my ass in Not Another Teen Movie. So we’ve gotten passed the point of, ‘That’s your boy in movies.’ Most of my movies aren’t that great. So we’re a little past that.”

Evans also talks about working with Tommy Lee Jones, who plays Col. Chester Phillips, the head of the project that creates the super-soldiers.

“This was the first time I met him,” Chris recalls, “I knew of him and of course, he’s Tommy Lee Jones and he’s fantastic. And it’s intimidating, working with these people, but he’s great. This is all part of the icing on the cake. He’s fantastic. He’s one of the

"Oh Captain, My Captain!!!"

best parts of the movie.”

Chris was asked to recall his first time he ever used a bed sheet to transform himself into a makeshift superhero.

“I don’t think I was nearly enough cool to put on a bed sheet,” Evans remembers, “I think I was taping a piece of paper on my stomach as a Care Bear. My house wasn’t as cool enough. We weren’t watching like Superman. We were watching My Little Pony with my sisters.”

With that in mind, we asked Evans if he had any love advice to impart for fellow nerds that have identified with him as a comic book superhero.

“Oh, man, what do I have to say to them?” Chris answers, “What can I say to them? The truth is a lot of my friends can be considered nerd-ish. I grew up doing plays. Theater kids aren’t always the coolest kids in the world, but they’re usually some of the most clever.”

“They’re usually some of the most articulate and thoughtful and riddled with depth and passion,” he adds, “You meet a lot of so-called nerds and they’re wildly interesting people, so be yourself, because you’re probably the coolest.”

Finally, Chris talks about the next films he has coming out before The Avengers hits theatres next year.

“They were both done right before,” Evans reveals, “It was all the same year. Puncture went to Tribeca earlier this year and I think it got bought and it’ll come out in September and I think What’s Your Number? comes out in September as well.”