Chris Evans – Captain America: “I was afraid of making lousy films”

The Fantastic Four actor initially said no to the role of Steve Rogers, before changing his mind.

Sarah Halley Finn has been Kevin Feige’s casting director since the MCU began fifteen years ago. It is notably to her that we owe the choice of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man. Logically, it had so much influence on the Marvel Cinematic Universe that it is at the heart of the book retracing the first 15 years of making this saga. In MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studiosby Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales and Gavin Edwards, she delivers many anecdotesexplaining for example that he first met Chadwick Boseman for the role of Drax in Guardians of the Galaxyor having hesitated between Chris Hemsworth, his brother Liam and Tom Hiddleston for the main role of Thor, before offering the latter to play his Machiavellian half-brother, Loki.

Among all these revelations, Finn dwells at length on the making of Captain America, whose main role was the most difficult to cast according to the franchise’s flagship producer, Kevin Feige. Here’s what they say about the casting of the first film, First Avengerdirected by Joe Johnston in 2011. Their comments are relayed by Vanity Fairwho took a long article from this reference work on Marvel.

“The casting of Captain America was super long, and very difficult, explains in particular Feige. I started thinking: what if we can’t find him? If we don’t find our Captain America, what are we going to do with the Avengers? Is the whole project going to fall through?”

Before choosing Chris Evans, the team met Ryan Philippe (Sex Intentions), Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy), Sebastian Stan (Black Swan), Jensen Ackles (supernatural), Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl), John Krasinski (The Office) and Wyatt Russell. For the latter, son of actors Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, it was even the very first audition of his career, and although he was not selected because he was considered too young for the role, he was called back a few years later to play John Walker in the Disney+ series Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

In the same vein, Krasinski finally lent his features briefly to Mr. Fantastic from Doctor Strange 2and Sebastian Stan signed on for nine appearances at Marvel, but as Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier, even though he had originally been in the running to play Steve Rogers.

Finn then says he thought of Chris Evans very early on, because his sons were big fans of the films The Fantastic Four released in 2005 and 2007. He played a character very different from Cap’, a real hothead: Johnny Storm, aka The Torch.

“We circled around him, we searched, then we came back to Chris, she explains. Already, he was American. We had cast lots of British people for other roles, but here we wanted to cast an American. He was a charming, funny, kind and talented actor. Among all his qualities, I believe there is one that was a little more difficult to discern: his humility. He had a moral sense, he could be trusted. He had this mix of strength and vulnerability, so you could turn this skinny Steve into Captain America.”

Unlike all the actors mentioned above, Chris Evans was one of the few who did not have to audition at Marvel. Kevin Feige already knew him personally thanks to Fantastic Four, so he asked her to sign for nine films at once, and gave her a weekend to decide. “It was a difficult weekend”comments the producer, the actor hesitated so much.

“For me, this offer was the culmination of temptation, explains Evans, who initially refused, before changing his mind. It was the ultimate job offer. On the largest scale that can exist. (…) I felt like I was signing my death warrant. I said to myself : ‘That’s it, my life is over. I can’t believe I did that. This is not the career I dreamed of.’ The thing that scared me the most, deep down, was signing for crappy films. I didn’t want to do shit and be contractually obligated to go anyway.”

It should be noted that in his initial offer, Feige asked him to sign for nine appearances at once spread over a decade. While following a significant diet throughout this period, in order to maintain imposing muscles. Evans knew that by becoming Captain America, he would become “THE” role of his career. All these reasons made him hesitate and even generated anxiety for the actor.

Chris Evans agrees with Quentin Tarantino: he’s not the star of Captain America

Faced with his first refusal, Feige decided to make another offer, to “only” six films: three opuses of Captain America and three ofAvengers. Twelve years after the release of Captain America: The First Avenger, we see that Chris Evans will have finally filmed more than that! There are eleven appearances of the actor in costume between 2011 and 2019 (including a very short one when Loki takes his appearance to irritate Thor, for example).

Now that this adventure is over, Evans is finally happy that his character has had an interesting evolution since his first solo film, and since the box full ofAvengersin 2012. He also appreciates the fact of having had the right to a “beautiful ending”, consistent with its journey, in Endgame. Which makes him say today thathe no longer wants to embody it so as not to spoil this experience, which turned out to be more positive and qualitative than he feared.

Thanks Seth Rogen, Chris Evans plans to make fewer films