Avengers: Age of Ultron star Chris Evans interview: Captain America's quest to prove himself in the director's chair

Evans has joined the growing list of actors venturing into the directing chair with his directorial debut Before We Go

Super man: Chris Evans (Startraks Photo/REX)

It’s a staple of comic book heroes that they do everything to keep their everyday human identities a secret. Yet for actor Chris Evans, who plays Captain America in The Avengers and the Captain America franchise, it seems that putting on the stars and stripes costume is also part of a double life. Whenever he’s not throwing his shield around in the Marvel Universe, he’s making movies more suited to the art house.

Recently, he’s also joined the growing list of actors who have ventured into the directing chair. His directorial debut, Before We Go, drew comparisons to Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy. It’s a two-hander that features Evans as Nick, a trumpet player in New York for an audition. He has a chance meeting with Brooke (Alice Eve) when she misses the last train to Boston and they spend the rest of the night wandering around the Lower East Side getting to know each other better. Typical of his mild manner, he says that on the 19-day shoot he felt sorry for his co-star Alice Eve. “It would be different if we were acting in a film with four people. But it’s just her and me, every scene you go ‘cut’, then bang, ‘here are some notes for you’. You kind of want to say ‘do you have notes for me?’ She never would because she’s too sweet. She was such a wonderful trooper in that respect.”

So it has seemed that the Boston-born 33-year-old is the reluctant superhero. He’s gone on record saying that his favourite day making the first Captain America was the day it wrapped. There was talk that he will quit acting when his Marvel contract is up, to concentrate on directing. “I’m not negative at all,” he protests when I ask him about the comments he’s made about playing Captain America. “I love the Marvel movies that they make, and I love being part of their family. Any negativity would come about because of my apprehension about being famous.” It was alleviated somewhat when Evans saw fame as being a bubble. “After doing the first Captain America and The Avengers movie you realise that the fame comes in waves, and when the movies come out there is a surge in interest and then it goes away and your life is not ruined.” He has suffered anxiety when talking to the press, but on the day I meet him, he seems relaxed and cheery.

Unsurprisingly, Evans is a private person away from the limelight. It’s rumoured that he’s currently dating actress Lily Collins. Yet with a steely gaze worthy of a superhero, he always bats away questions about his private life by saying he’d prefer not to answer such questions.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron is the fourth time he has played Captain America. Indeed, we don’t even get to see him as Steve Rogers in this one. The film that starts with a fight in Eastern Europe and sees Captain America lead a trope that includes Robert Downey Jr.s Iron Man and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow in a battle against Ultron, an Artificial Intelligence robot that utilises all the knowledge contained in computers around Earth and is voiced by Sex, Lies and Videotape star James Spader. It has a high bar to reach, the first Avengers film is the highest grossing film in history not directed by James Cameron.

It’s no wonder that Evans might sometimes seem to be a little sick of wearing tights, as his next film is Captain America: Civil War. When he’s had a chance to choose other projects, he’s made some interesting choices – not least when he starred in Snowpiercer by Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, a post-apocalyptic film set on a train carrying the last inhabitants on Earth, in which Evans engages in some class warfare. Evans is the nephew of a Democratic congressman, Michael E Capuano, and has said he believes in government helping the poorest in society.

L to R: Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Captain America (Chris Evans) & Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) in previous Avengers movie Avengers Assemble (Zade Rosenthal / 2011 MVLFFLLC / 2011 Marvel) (Marvel)

So is he making blockbusters just to fuel his desire to make more left-field projects? “Well yeah, it is the type of thing where if you do this type of film, the Marvel universe, you could be in a position to have far more opportunities. I think every actor in the world has drawn comparisons to that approach to this business, what did George Clooney say, ‘one for them, and one for me’, or something like that.”

His sees his future in directing. “I’d like to direct again in the fall. I’m reading script hoping to find the next job,” he said. Yet this doesn’t mean that he’ll give up acting, as some reports have suggested.

“I’ll always love acting and try and explore it. Before You Go was a little bit tough because I was acting in every scene. It would be nice to actually sit in the director’s chair and watch and know when something is not working. On the next one, I’ll probably, to be honest, have to act in it, just because it’s how I can get the film made, but hopefully not be in such a big role.”

It’s the poisoned chalice of getting the fame that enables him to make the film he wants, but that very same fame places restrictions on how he can go about making it. “It’s tricky, but I’m lucky enough that it’s kind of worked out.”

Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) (© 2014 MVLFFLLC. TM & 2014 Marvel) (© 2014 MVLFFLLC. TM & 2014 Marvel)

His career has thus far only been on an upward trajectory. He started out as a model and got a job as the face of a long forgotten 90s Mystery Date board game. He then landed a bit part in Not Another Teen Movie. But before long he was starring alongside Avengers’ co-star Scarlett Johansson in The Perfect Score, before securing his first comic book hero gig, playing the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four movies. Then came the art house credentials, appearing in crime drama The Iceman opposite Michael Shannon, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival in 2012.

Yet all through his career he says he’s been watching directors as he’s always known he has had a desire to direct.

“Sometimes you learn a little bit more from the bad directors than you do from the good ones. You learn that what makes a movie work is good preparation. I’ve been on film sets where the director isn’t quite sure where he wants the camera, he isn’t quite sure what he needs out of the actors, what he needs for the scenes, and those are the questions marks that slow a process down. It’s hard to ask a director for advice because there are so many parts to directing, there is never one thing that makes it work.”

He says he wants to make films about relationships, whether brother and sister, or boyfriend and girlfriend. “I like human conflicts that seem insignificant when you tell them to anyone else, but at the moment they happen they mean everything to you.”

His favourite directors are Cameron Crowe, Jason Reitman and Ed Zwick; “He makes these sweeping epics, Legends of the Fall is my favourite movie.”

Not once does he wax lyrical about films in which robots or comic book characters battle each other. So it might be a case of enjoying Evans in tights while we get the chance.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron is on general release