CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (CHRIS EVANS INTERVIEW PART 2)

Chris Evans recently sat down with ComingSoon.net to discuss the upcoming Captain America: The First Avenger film, as well as his role in the upcoming Marvel Team-Up film, the Avengers.

Chris Evans

• One of the striking things in the movie is you coming out of the military pod and looking crazy buff post-serum. How much training did you endure to get into that condition?

Ugh, so much training. It was tough. I’ve always been in the gym and worked out and things like that, and I’ve had to get big for other films, but nothing like this. They flew a trainer over from London – I was in Boston working on a film, and we did three months prior to shooting. We were working out every day for just about two hours, sometimes twice a day, and it was just grueling. I’ve never trained like that in my life. I’m just getting back into it now and gearing back up and trying to get big again.

• So, lots of eating?

Lots of eating. That’s the hardest part. You’d think that would be the fun part, but sometimes you’re full. You just don’t want to eat. I have to. I’m a naturally skinny guy, so to try and get mass like that, it’s not easy. I have to make sure I’m taking in a lot of protein.

• In the Marvel comics, Cap is a guy who went from the 1940s to modern times when he’s found encased in ice by the Avengers. Assuming part of that will be in The Avengers movie, your Cap will have to live in a world that’s very different from what he’s used to.

Yeah, at least there’s some meat on the bone. You want to play a character that has conflict – that’s what makes a character appealing to an actor, getting to find an arc and a reason, something to chew on. And that’s a lot. If you woke up one day and it was 50, 60 years in the future and everyone you knew had passed away and the entire world around you is different — you don’t have a friend, you don’t know anybody, you don’t know anything — that’d be a lot to take in. It’s exciting as an actor to try and tackle that.

• We’ve also been able to see how the Red Skull looks now, too.

Oh, that looks so badass. You’d be talking to Hugo on set and he’d be wearing that thing, and you kinda want to just touch it. It looked so good! It didn’t look fake — it looked like there is a man with a red skull standing next to me who is evil.

        Captain America                        Johnny- Fantastic Four 

• Did having two Fantastic Four movies under your belt help in knowing at least the fervent, comics-loving fanboys you’d have to deal with?

Sure. It’s great to get an experience of the press tour and the craziness and the workload after filming. Filming is one thing, but all movies are relatively similar. The work comes in the form of press. You go all over the world and you don’t sleep and it’s just answering a lot of the same questions thousands of times and trying to promote this thing you’ve worked on so hard. But the good thing about Fantastic Four is everyone wanted to talk to Jessica [Alba]. No one wanted to talk to me! [Laugh] It was great! I got to sit in the background and be there, but not have to really carry the load. This is obviously different. It’s nice to have had a little taste but yeah, it’s gonna be nothing close to this.

• Do you enjoy that extra responsibility?

No! My God, I hate it! [Laughs] I almost didn’t do this movie because I hate that so much. It’s just not for me. I don’t know, it’s a strange thing to talk about yourself. You have to look at it as a job, you have to look at it as work. If all of a sudden you stop – at least if I stop — in the middle of an interview and look at myself, I become very uncomfortable, very nervous. It just feels strange. I feel false, it doesn’t feel right. This movie is a lot of that – it’s gonna be a lot of press. I have a little bit of an anxiety issue. I wasn’t making whatever movie I wanted to make – you still have to struggle — but I was very happy, very content, with what I was doing. I’d make a movie every now and then and I’ve made a good living and I got to do what I loved and I managed to stay out of the public eye, and I was very happy. This was one of those things where it was like, “Alright, if you do this, there’s really no off switch. There’s no rewind. You’ve got to make sure you’re ready and that you really, really want this.” A lot of times, people only see the good part and they forget how tricky it can be. For some reason, I only saw the bad. [Laughs] When I first got offered the movie, I just only saw the negatives and ran from it.

• What changed your mind?

The fact that I was scared. I said to someone close to me, “I was offered this movie and I think I’m going to say no.” And she said, “No, you’re not. You’re going to do this movie.” I said, “Why?” And she said, “Because you can’t live your life based on fear.” That’s a really good point: I think I’d end up having more regret if I didn’t do it because I was scared than if I did it, and whatever comes, comes. At least I wasn’t a coward.

• Between The Avengers and the Captain America sequel in the works, have you figured out what else you’ll be doing not involving a costume or a shield?

I have a movie [Puncture] that’s coming and will go to the Tribeca Film Festival. It’s a little indie. It’s nice to get independent films in there. It’s a completely different feel. Sometimes in movies like [Captain America], there’s a lot of money involved, and as a result, everyone is paid a lot of money to make everything look perfect. You’ve seen these movies – it’s art, it’s gorgeous. But as a result, it’s very tedious. Some days, you really sit around, and you go home and you’re like, “Man, I spent maybe 60 percent of my day sitting on my ass.” A little indie movie, you go go go. You’ll burn through seven or eight pages in a day. On a film like Captain America, you might get a page. With the indies, you come home and you really feel like, “I made a movie today. I went to work and I worked and I was an actor for a living and I was told I had to be ready all day. There was no rest. I had to be there.” You really feel like you got your hands dirty. Sometimes this just feels a little slow, so it’s nice to get back to some indies.

• With Cap, you are in the spotlight and the star. In The Avengers, there are at least seven A-listers involved. Do you feel a little more comfortable with that situation?

Oh, I can’t wait. [Laughs] I’m hoping they only want to talk to Robert and Scarlett. Please! That’s all I was thinking about with The Avengers: Just get through Captain America and then I can disappear into the background come press time. The movie’s one thing – obviously you want to act and it’s fun to make a film and play a role, but come press and interviews, I have no problem being way in the back seat and trying to let everyone else take the heat.