Chris Evans is Having Second Thoughts

Some of the things that the reluctant leading man has been contemplating lately include: humanity's tiny place in our vast galaxy, autumns in New England, whether his dog realizes he's famous, and how, well, maybe being a movie star isn't the best occupation for a guy who's so prone to thinking about absolutely everything.

- ZACH BARON

AT SOME POINT, not long after Chris Evans finished the seventh of seven contractually obligated Captain America performances with 2019's Avengers: Endgame, he left Los Angeles. The idea was, well-there were a few ideas. One was getting out of a town that Evans associates with "Pavlovian anxiety." Another was going back home to Massachusetts, where Evans grew up and where he's often resided since 2014. When he steps off the plane there, he says, it "takes me back to a place when life was not just simpler that's too reductive-but to a time where I was more pure, I guess; where my ego and my insecurities weren't such a dominant force that I had to push against." At his house just outside Boston, Evans says, "I really take my time." Just thinking about it makes him smile. His voice turns boyish, sweet, soft: "I can't believe I'm 42." 

Evans has been working steadily and successfully in Hollywood for more than 20 years. But he has not always felt in control there. When he was younger, he acted in a lot of what he now describes as "bad movies." His first real successes in the industry came by way of a series of characters who were "jocky pricks," he says: handsome, muscular assholes whose smugness was their most memorable quality. And then came Steve Rogers, otherwise known as Captain America, a character so defined and iconic-unlike other Marvel heroes, Cap has basically been the same virtuous guy since the day of his invention in 1940-that Evans's main job was as much to be a caretaker as it was to be an inventor or an explorer.