"Piercing More Than Our Hearts"

Chris Evans was still merely a side player with roles in Not Another Teen Movie and The Fantastic Four films. In July, however, he got major international notice after scoring a coveted role as the titular character Captain America: The First Avenger, which will parlay into the super-spinoff film The Avengers next year.

Now the 30 year-old actor switches gears a little bit playing the lead role in a much smaller film, the independent drama Puncture. Evans shared with us what he feels for him are the main differences between independent films and studio films.

“There’s a different vibe on indie films,” Chris explains, “When you do these big studio movies, it’s a lot of hurry up and wait, you spend half the day in your trailer, it’s a very tedious process. And these small indies, it’s, you go home everyday, you feel like you worked. You burn through seven to eight pages a day on movies like this. On a studio film, you’re lucky if you get two.”

“So you’re called upon to do what you do and you feel like you got your hands dirty,” he adds, “On a big studio film, sometimes you feel like, man, I just want to run, I just want to get out there and act a little bit and it’s just not that way. It’s not that pace. These little movies, you better know all your lines because we only have five weeks.”

Chris also revealed what attracted to him about this particular story, which is about a young, successful Texan lawyer named Mike Weiss who privately battles an addiction to heroin.

“It was more about the character,” Evans explains, “I just liked the guy. I just liked the fact that I would be able to talk to people and meet people who knew him, who loved him, who can tell me details that you can’t find in the script. As an actor, I’ve never gone down that road, I’ve never

"Piercing More Than Our Hearts"

tapped that well, so it was exciting.”

The film is based on a true story, so we asked Evans if he ever saw a photo or a home video of the real-life person Mike Weiss was based on.

“I’ve never seen a photo of him,” Chris says, “I’ve never seen a home video. I’ve never seen a photo. I don’t know what he looks like.”

Chris revealed to us the original title the film was going to be before the producers settled on Puncture.

“There was, at one point, a debate on the title of the film and I really liked the potential title ‘Noble Rot’,” he recalls, “That’s what they were going to go with and I really wanted them to, but for some reason, they didn’t like the word ‘rot’. ‘Noble rot’ is when you have a batch of grapes and you’re making a wine.”

“It’s the first grape to kind of sour,” Evans continues, “‘Noble rot’ is the period where they show the transition of the grape fermenting and if it passes a certain stage, it ruins the whole bunch of grapes, but if you hit it at the right moment, it makes some of the nicest wine out there. And it’s kind of this guy. He’s this incredibly charismatic guy who walks a fine line of being a catalyst for good and one-step two far and he leaves a wake and he hurts people. So it’s really a strange dichotomy.”

Evans talks about the contradiction of his character Mike being in top physical condition, yet also being a heroin addict.

“It was great to hear from his friends that this guy would jog and exercise and drink protein shakes and take vitamins and go home and shoot up,” Chris says, “Oddly enough, I know guys like that. It’s strange when you meet these functioning drug addicts.”

“Their priorities are so out of whack that they won’t drink caffeine and they’ll make sure that they run the mile everyday,” he

"Piercing More Than Our Hearts"

adds, “And then, they’d be doing cocaine throughout the entire day. It’s really an interesting character there. People like that.”

Mike’s other struggle is with his career as a lawyer, in which he is torn between his need to succeed and his need to be noble in his profession. We asked Chris if he believed it was still possible to be noble in your profession in this day and age.

“I hope so,” Evans replies, “I don’t know much about lawyers. I guess I don’t know that world well enough to know how much you have to compromise in order to succeed financially in that business. I’d hope there’s still the opportunity to maintain your integrity, while pursuing financial advantages. I guess I just don’t know enough about how lawyers operate.”

We asked Evans about the multiple tattoos Mike sports in the film and how many of them are actually his.

“I got a few of those, about three or four,” Chris replies, “But most of those are fake or were press-ons.”

Chris was asked about whether Marvel had any issues with him doing this particular kind of character right in-between two films as Captain America.

“They’re great,” Evans says of the studio, “Marvel’s a great studio to work for. If you’re going to be locked up into these giant, multi-picture contracts, Marvel’s the place to be. They’re so accommodating. They want you to stretch and have a variety of roles in-between. I mean look at [Robert] Downey [Jr.], he’s got like a hundred different movies in-between Iron Man, so Marvel’s great when it comes to that.”

Finally, Evans talks about how he enjoyed working with co-star Anna Faris n his other new film, the comedy What’s Your Number.

“It was great,” Chris replies, “It was a good time. Anna Faris is brilliant. She’s Anna Faris. Anytime you can share the screen with that type of comedic actress, it’s a blessing.”