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Chris Evans on Captain America and ‘Enjoying the Right Now’

Have you ever known something is coming but the moment it gets reiterated, your heart breaks a little? That’s how we feel when Chris Evans mentions his contract with the MCU being over after Avengers 4.

In fact, Avengers 4 could be the end for a few of our favorite MCU heroes. Chris Hemsworth, Robert Downey Jr, and Chris Evans have all spoken about it before. However, getting closer to the release of Infinity War is making it more real to fans. It’s also stirring up some strong emotions.

Not that we expected any less. Chris Evans has portrayed the Captain America we’ve always really needed. The sense of himself that he brings to the role makes it more real. He’s inherently good and he’s also not afraid to make a mistake or go against the general consensus. He’s real and relatable and he’s given fans around the world a true hero.

So in his recent interview with New York Times, he mentions laying down the shield.

‘You want to get off the train before they push you off.’

Now, if we had anything to do with it, we’d make sure the train that Evans rides as Captain America was slow moving and any threat of him getting shoved off was obliterated. However, we aren’t in charge. There are contracts and film opportunities and more important than any of that – there’s Chris and how far he stepped out of his comfort zone to even take on the role at all.

Having turned down the role more than once, he finally signed a contract with Marvel Studios to bring the character to life. We couldn’t be more grateful. So even though our hearts will be broken when Evans no longer carries the shield as Captain America, we’ll rest easy knowing we even had him Steve Rogers in the first place.

He went on to discuss how he used to sort of spend time wishing and hoping to become something. To reach a certain high, to get to somewhere. Only to find out that he was still left longing.

‘I used to have thoughts of wanting to climb to the top of something, or wanting to be somebody, but when you get the thing that you think you want and then you wake up and realize that you still have pockets of sadness, and that your struggle will reinvent itself, you stop chasing after those things and it’s liberating, because you realize that right here, right now, is exactly all I need.’

That attitude has allowed Evans to simply enjoy the present. For him now, that means starring in a Broadway play ‘Lobby Hero’. His role Bill, a male officer, is a different one than fans are used to seeing Evans in. He’s morally corrupt, but it’s a role Evans takes on with a deep passion for the art of acting.

The play’s director, Trip Cullman, said this of getting the script to Evans.

‘I had this inkling that he may not have had the opportunity to show what he can really do as an actor. A lot of actors are afraid to play someone unlikable, but I think he really has an egoless desire to serve the work.’

‘An egoless desire to serve the work’ is the perfect way to describe his craft. While we can’t recall a role of his that we didn’t like, we’ve got a fond place in our hearts for some of his roles that aren’t as ‘mainstream’.

Erik Tanner, New York Times

Gifted, Before We Go, and Puncture are just a few of our favorites and roles that we think gave Evans more of that opportunity that Cullman mentioned. However, being on a movie set isn’t exactly where Evans is happiest. Which is easily another reason he’s not foreseeing anything with the MCU past Avengers 4.

‘When I think about the times that I’m happiest, it’s not on a movie set. I’ve stopped thinking about my trajectory, or my oeuvre, or whatever pretentious word you want to use. I’m just following whatever I feel creatively hungry for.’

That’s not to say that he doesn’t enjoy working on films, but he wants to let his passion fuel his career. Not obligations. If you read or watch any interview by Evans, you see an honest man who has an incredible career and a flood of opportunities. However, he doesn’t want to become lost in the vortex of it all.

You can see Evans as Captain America in Avengers: Infinity War on April 27th.