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Home , Chris Evans (actor), Hood (comics), Jessica Biel

CAPTAIN AMERICA COMES HOME AFTER A DECADE PLAYING THE PATRIOTIC SUPERHERO, IS LAYING DOWN HIS SHIELD AND HEADING BACK TO HIS HOMETOWN. WHAT’S NEXT?

by JESSE WILL • photographs by MILLER MOBLEY , presenting with Jenni- The micro-drama was caught on camera; think comment on his character’s fate. “You can’t “There was no reason that after 10 years of fer Lopez in front of a TV audience of more pieces on chivalry hit the internet the next day. ask me that!” he says. Actors playing Marvel making movies, I was freaking out the way I than 29 million. His duds that night: a cus- Evans says his phone only recently stopped roles apparently get castigated—vaporized?— was,” he says. “I started to entertain the possi- tom baby-blue velvet Ferragamo jacket that vibrating with texts from friends and family if they leak plot points, and Evans wants to bility that maybe this wasn’t the right industry his stylist told was who caught it. “The bar is so low that literally I avoid that, in part because he’d like to direct for me. I started to think, Am I getting closer inspired by Prince Charming. did a normal thing, like on par with saying ‘God one of the studio’s titles one day. to the person I’m supposed to be—or further? I Evans ushers me inside, where the dish- bless you’ when somebody sneezes, and people Assuming the rumors of Rogers’ demise started to feel like maybe I was getting further.” washer is running and congressional hear- thought it was—I don’t know,” he says. are true—Evans himself tweeted “thanks, it’s Evans was preparing to do the noble work ings are playing on cable news, and Dodger, Spend some time with Chris Evans and you been an honor” to the cast, crew, and audience of reclaiming his life. He’d step away from the Evans’ rescue dog, is spinning around like a start to understand that Chris Evans doesn’t when reshoots on Endgame ended last Octo- movies. Chuck it all. Do something different. dervish, because maybe no one’s come over drink the Chris Evans Kool-Aid. The actor ber—Evans’ send-off from the Marvel fran- But then Marvel called, offering the role of in a while. The scene is not quite what you could certainly steep in celebrity in L.A., but chise should be well attended. Last spring’s . A nine-film deal, no audi- expect when you’re visiting an actor who he’d rather be back east, back home, where : War had the best U.S. and tion necessary. It was an actor’s dream in terms plays a Marvel superhero. It’s more like visit- instead of paparazzi, he’s seen by deer and global box office debut of all time; Endgame of f inancial security. But Evans said no. Then a ing a successful but reclusive novelist. Or your dogs and maybe a few retirees on their daily will likely eclipse it, with expectations of a few friends told him he was crazy, that he was parents’ suburban home. workouts, slogging down the road in sweats. near $300 million opening weekend. Collec- just being scared, retreating. Evans listened,

RURAL MASSACHUSETTS SEEMS A BILLION I ask about the Oscars and J. Lo, and Evans Where on the weekends, his old friends like to tively, the nine Marvel movies Evans has acted then started to see the offer as a sign from miles removed from where you’d imagine a reveals his contemporaneous monologue: tell him that he’s a shitty actor, and he’s per- in have made $9,256,566,189 at the box office, the universe. He talked Marvel down to a six- Hollywood superstar would want to spend “She’s been a major crush of mine for so long,” fectly cool with that. but who’s counting. Needless to say, Evans movie contract, then took the deal. (He still did the waning days of winter. The trees are bare, he says. “I was just thinking, Don’t be annoy- has played a major part in the Franchise That nine films.) “I got the job in a weird way from refrozen slush piles reach head high, and even ing, don’t be annoying, shut up Chris, just shut OF COURSE, EVANS HAS THE LUXURY OF Saved Hollywood. saying no,” he says. “Just like other things in in the midafternoon, there’s a kind of dull up. Don’t be a dickhead. Don’t say anything, relaxing far from the West Coast hustle in part Funny to think that he almost didn’t take life, when you say no, they just pursue you.” gloaming. Wouldn’t you rather be in Santa because you don’t know what to say.” because his character has been a lodestar in the the gig. Still, Evans describes the experience of Monica, or St. Lucia? Not that you’d notice he was anything but most lucrative franchise in f ilm history (yes, Evans explains that in 2010, he was in shooting the original film, Captain America: Yet here’s Captain America, Chris Evans, cool at the Oscars. A Chris Evans moment went even more so than ). Since 2010, shooting the low-budget film Punc- The First Avenger, as a “hair-on-fire fever he of the signature square jaw and brooding viral when, seated in the front row, he quickly Evans has played Steve Rogers, or Captain ture, a ripped-from-the-headlines drama about dream.” He felt, he recalls, like a cat being visage, breathing in the damp afternoon air leaped to the aid of actress Regina King when America, the stars-and-stripes-clad, shield- a drug-addicted lawyer taking on a medical- tossed into a bathtub. Captain America, on his stoop as he ushers me into his home, her dress became tangled as she approached the wielding supersoldier and steadfast of a device company. By this point, Evans had after all, is not exactly an easy character to a heavily renovated farmhouse on a couple of stage. Evans supported King as she straight- team of Hollywood’s hottest superheroes. The acted in plenty of films, with starring roles play—especially when you’re following in the snow-covered acres outside . “Yeah, I ened it out, then escorted her up a few stairs. latest installment in the series, Avengers: End- in action flicks and rom-coms since making footsteps of Robert Downey Jr.’s electric, char- guess this is the part of the year where you, game, opens April 26 and ends this particular his major-movie debut in 2001’s Not Another ismatic . “Marvel had this hope of a you know, question why you live here,” he chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or Teen Movie. But for some reason, in Houston tapestry of characters,” Evans says. “It really admits, laughing as he surveys the scene. MCU, in geekspeak). Apparently, it’s Evans’ he was starting to lose it. He was having panic doesn’t work if one of them falls flat on his face.” But Evans, 37, loves it here. He grew up last go as Cap: Rumor has it that this time attacks, melting down between takes. He’d Based on a character that first appeared in just a few miles away and even now, nearly a around, Steve Rogers bites the dust. long expressed frustration with the dancing- World War II–era comic books, Rogers starts decade after picking up the shield of Captain PREVIOUS SPREAD: EVANS WEARS LEVI’S DENIM JACKET, BRUNELLO CUCINELLI VINTAGET-SHIRT, LEVI’S JEANS, IWC WATCH. Lounging on the couch, feet up on a monkey aspect of actorhood, but had learned as a weakling with a fighting spirit who gets America, looks every bit the local in a Red distressed-wood coffee table, Evans won’t to glad-hand the press without losing his mind, injected with a serum that turns him into the Sox ball cap, a red tartan flannel, and chuk- and seemed to be getting better at faking it supersoldier. He’s kind of the moral compass kas. It’s hard to reckon that just a couple of through step and repeats on the red carpet. But of the MCU, a bit of a throwback, and, well, days before, this same guy was onstage at the for the first time, Evans’ anxiety was getting pretty corny. “Downey’s character is obvi- the better of him on set, a place he had always ously the crown jewel, constantly making considered cathartic, therapeutic. mistakes and finding redemption,” Evans

WHEN YOU PLAY A CHARACTER FOR A LONG TIME, YOU START TO LOOK AT YOUR OWN CONFLICTS THROUGH THE EYES OF SOMEONE WHO MIGHT HANDLE IT BETTER THAN YOU WOULD.”

055 says. “Cap is the steady hand on the wheel.” home to me. I have no desire to lay down roots inspires the theoretical Marxist in all of us.” Joe Russo, who along with his brother somewhere else.” Evans attributes his pointed political Anthony has directed Evans in four Mar- This is not all to say that Evans spends statements to Trump’s rise. “I wasn’t like vel movies, including Endgame, calls Cap- all his downtime holed up in the woods, that before he came around, to be honest,” tain America “one of the most difficult roles refusing to engage the outside world. He’s he says. But politics is far from his only pas- you could possibly ask an actor to play.” The built one of Hollywood’s must-read Twitter sion. Evidence of his other interests can be challenge? “He’s playing integrity and moral accounts, amassing some 10.6 million fol- seen on the walls surrounding us. There are fortitude, and making it complex and inter- lowers. His posts, fired off from his iPhone framed botanical illustrations of local plants, a esting at the same time,” Russo says. “It can every other day or so, cover everything from detailed map of the moon’s surface, and a lith- be very difficult.” videos of Dodger to news about deep space, ograph poster of nearby Walden Pond. Evans Evans, for his part, admits that the role has and rack up likes and retweets in the hun- swims there every summer. Introspection and been a learning experience, and not just as an dreds of thousands. independence are a thing in this part of the actor. Playing Captain America, he says, has And then there’s politics. Evans grew up world, apparently. It’s rubbed off on Evans. “It made him a better man. “When you’re playing in a lefty political family—his uncle is former sounds like a gross statement because I hear a character for a long time, you start to see the Democratic representative — it overused in L.A. a lot,” he says, “but I do parallels between what the character’s going and for as long as he can remember, holidays meditate every day.” In fact, a few years ago, through and what you’re going through,” were occasions for heated discussions. “We’re he spent a month at a retreat in India. he says. “You start to look at your own con- very outspoken and vocal.” On Twitter, he’s He’s always reading something and is cur- flicts and circumstances through the eyes of referred to President Trump as “Biff” (a ref- rently immersed in Sapiens: A Brief History someone who might handle it better of Humankind, by Yuval Noah than you would.” Harari, a kind of pop survey of In fact, as reshoots for Endgame the history of evolutionary biol- wrapped last October, Evans found it ogy. “I mean, this is gonna go tough to put down the shield. “It felt really off the rails here…but there like graduating high school or col- was a long time before humans lege, you know,” he says. “For the last even used concepts of religion month of filming I was letting myself and politics to ensure behavior go to work every day and be a little and order—and it’s not even that overwhelmed and a little nostalgic long ago,” he says. “We’re a very and grateful. By the last day, I was small inch in a very long mile. bawling. I cry pretty easy, but I was We’re playing a game that was definitely bawling.” presented to us. We didn’t really make it, but we’re a part of it! THERE IS NO CAPTAIN AMERICA “That’s why I like being up paraphernalia on display at Evans’ here—everything slows down, house, which is a portrait of luxe and you can appreciate the little but rustic minimalism. “The older things that remind you that I get, I shed a lot,” he says, showing none of this is real: If I ever start me around. “I like running clean.” A getting too romantic about my I WAS NEVER MUCH OF A ‘I CAN’T WAIT TO Bösendorfer upright piano is prob- career or this industry, it’s a slip- ably the flashiest thing here—Evans pery slope.” LEAVE THIS TOWN’ KIND OF KID. THIS IS has been playing since he was young. BRUNELLO WEARS EVANS OPPOSITE: 2019. STUDIOS © MARVEL COLLECTION; GRANT/EVERETT EVANS/RONALD MARY TOP: HOME TO ME. I HAVE NO DESIRE TO LAY DOWN He also plays guitar and says he can EVANS IS JUST AS CIRCUM- “fake it” on the drums. spect about his private life, ROOTS ANYWHERE ELSE.” Evans has a place in L.A.’s Holly- which he doesn’t much discuss. wood Hills, but he’s in Massachusetts Back in the early aughts, he most of the time. “When I’m here, I dated and Minka feel much more like myself, the way Kelly. But recently his red- I was when I was a kid,” Evans says, carpet dates tend to be family “when I was only pursuing acting as and friends. At the last Academy a hobby because that’s what it was—a Awards, his date was his brother hobby.” After a pause, he admits to a secret Scott, 35, also an actor. vice: “I love to rollerblade. It’s a bummer that From top: With co-star Jaime Pressly in Most recently Evans garnered attention rollerblading became uncool, because it’s 2001’s ; in Aveng- for an on-again, off-again relationship with fucking awesome. You have wheels on your ers: Endgame with (from left) Scarlett actress , whom he met on a read CUCINELLI SWEATSHIRT, VINTAGE LEVI’S JEANS, IWC WATCH IWC JEANS, LEVI’S VINTAGE SWEATSHIRT, CUCINELLI fucking feet. Come on! My friends make fun Johansson, , and Don Cheadle. for the family drama Gifted. The pairing of of me, but I fucking love it.” a straitlaced superhero (on screen, at least) At some point most days, he’ll visit fam- erence to Biff Tannen, the buffoonish villain and an off beat comic talent proved fodder ily who live nearby—his father, a dentist; his in Back to the Future); in a tweet retweeted for countless gossip-blog posts. I ask Evans if mother, the director of a youth theater; and over 55,000 times, he stated that the presi- the massive interest might have been because two sisters, one with three kids. On weekends, dent “stirred discord, feigned innocence, folks figured him for someone more, well, the Evans pad serves as home base for his old and bluffed patriotism.” He’s called Vice bro-ish. “Yeah,” he says, “I think she may have friends to hang. “It’s a wicked lucky thing,” President Pence an “obsequious little worm” even, at first. But then she was just like, ‘Man, Evans says. “We have a real tight group of (40,000 likes.) Of course, the far right is you’re not like what I thought you were going eight or 10 guys. The majority of them are in happy to take the bait, with constant insults to be.’ I can speak f luent bro, but I don’t con- the suburbs, and they all have kids. Now on aimed at Evans—whose Captain America, if sider myself one. I wear a hat, and I drink beer, the weekends, they come over here. We just you’ll remember, squares off against Nazis. and I like sports. But I was a big theater dork drink, you know, and bullshit. The white supremacist leader David Duke in high school, you know what I mean?” “I was never much of a ‘I can’t wait to leave called Evans a “typical dumb actor” in one The relationship with Slate ended last year, this town’ kind of kid,” Evans says. “This is Twitter battle, adding that “Captain America and Evans is back looking for a partner. “I really

056 want kids. Yeah, I do. I like pretty pedestrian, domestic things. I want a wife, I want kids. I like ceremony. I want to carve pumpkins and decorate Christmas trees and shit like that.” I ask Evans what else is on his bucket list. “I’ve never been to Hawaii. Never seen the northern lights.” These things are…entirely doable, I assure him. But first, he’ll have to find the time. In a few months, he’ll start shooting a series for Apple, Defending Jacob, in which he plays the father of a high school kid accused of murder. Then there’s a project with director (Training Day, The Equalizer). In Novem- ber, he’ll appear alongside Daniel Craig in a tongue-in-cheek murder mystery called , directed by (The Last Jedi). The Captain America experience, he says, has given him the luxury of taking chances: “When you can relax a little bit, when acting doesn’t feel like this weird pressure cooker of grabbing the next vine before you let go of the one you got, that’s when it’s fun.” By now, the evening is unceremoniously closing in—no mystical L.A. twilight up here in New England—and Dodger is out in the backyard again, barking at the mailman or the neighbors. As we wrap things up, I ask Evans about a farewell gift Robert Downey Jr. gave him as filming wrapped on End- game: a meticulously restored and modified WHEN YOU CAN RELAX A BIT, WHEN ACTING 1967 Camaro RS. “It’s actually here!” Evans DOESN’T FEEL LIKE THIS WEIRD PRESSURE says, pointing toward the garage. We walk out to see the vintage machine, shimmering COOKER OF GRABBING THE NEXT VINE and spotless, resting next to his daily driver, BEFORE YOU LET GO OF THE ONE YOU’VE a black Audi A6. The Camaro is done up in a low-key custom hue Evans says Downey GOT, THAT’S WHEN IT’S FUN.” selected himself: “Melted army man green.” Underneath the Camaro’s hood, the super- charged V8 engine sends 730 horsepower to the rear wheels—twice or three times the car’s original output. Meaning: It’s a summer car, and Evans isn’t turning the ignition today. On days like this, it would be quite possible to hit a patch of ice and wrap this immaculate restoration around a tree. Downey, Evans says, was shocked when he asked him to deliver the car to Massachu-

EVANS WEARS LEVI’S DENIM SHEARLING JACKET, BRUNELLO CUCINELLI SHIRT, VINTAGE VINTAGE SHIRT, CUCINELLI BRUNELLO JACKET, SHEARLING DENIM LEVI’S WEARS EVANS setts, rather than L.A. But in Los Angeles, such a conspicuous ride would make it easy for paparazzi to him. Here, he says, the LEVI’S JEANS, PHILIPPE MODEL SNEAKERS, IWC WATCH, RAY-BAN SUNGLASSES RAY-BAN WATCH, IWC SNEAKERS, MODEL PHILIPPE JEANS, LEVI’S Camaro mostly draws attention from “old dudes and their old cars,” a rural Massachu- setts staple. Those guys will flag him down in parking lots, ask him to pop the hood. Evans always complies, saying, “I don’t know a fucking thing about it.” Most of those old dudes, the Sunday drivers, have no idea who Evans is, though a few might notice that the subtle design of the Camaro’s steering wheel centers around a milled-metal Captain America shield. So the neighbor’s a superhero. Who knew? At which point, Evans will drop the pedal and drive the same spindly country roads he’s cruised since he was 16. “If I have to drive somewhere with the windows down, the music up, on a nice summer day,” he says, “there’s nowhere I’d rather do it than here, you know what I mean? This is home.” MJ

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