Chris Evans worried Captain America role would make him “deeply unhappy”

Chris Evans has admitted that he feared accepting the role of Captain America would make him “deeply unhappy”.

Speaking to GQ, the actor discussed the initial trepidation he felt when considering whether to accept the role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

“The pros were that I’d be able to take care of my family forever,” he said. “The cons were that I would become deeply, deeply unhappy with fame and loss of control.”

Evans played the superhero character in a total of seven films in the MCU, starting with 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger and concluding with 2019’s Avengers: Endgame.

“I love playing that role,” he continued. “I feel connected to it in a way that when you revisit a character so many times you can’t help but try to absorb some of their traits and measure yourself against them.”

Evans announced in 2018 that he would be retiring from the MCU, saying that it had been “an honour” to play the role for eight years. Speaking of the decision that year, he said, “You want to get off the train before they push you off.”

Asked this week whether he could be tempted to return to the Captain America/Steve Rogers character, Evans said: “I’ll never say never, just because it was such a wonderful experience. But I’m also very precious with it. It’s something that I am very proud of.”

“And like I said, sometimes I can’t believe it even happened. And I wouldn’t want the black eye if it felt like a cash grab or if it didn’t live up to expectations or if it just felt like it wasn’t connected to that original thing. So, no time soon.”

Since leaving the MCU, Evans has appeared in films including Rian Johnson’s whodunnit Knives Out, Netflix thriller The Gray Man and the Toy Story spin-off Lightyear.

‘Phase Five’ of the MCU began in 2023 with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, with five more films set to be released before the end of 2025.

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