Yesterday afternoon I checked Twitter and saw that “Avengers” was trending. And I think maybe Chris Evans. I thought maybe it was a trailer for Avengers 4 and that we’d finally get some hint about what happened to everyone after they broke into little pieces of black nothing like Voldemort. Turns out it was what Chris had just tweeted:
Officially wrapped on Avengers 4. It was an emotional day to say the least. Playing this role over the last 8 years has been an honor. To everyone in front of the camera, behind the camera, and in the audience, thank you for the memories! Eternally grateful.
— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) October 4, 2018
Most people interpreted this to mean that Chris is finally done with Captain America. He’s wrapped all his scenes. He’s honoured his contract. He’s out. And people were deep into their feelings about it even though he hasn’t exactly made it a secret that he’s always intended to …hang up the shield? Is that the right way to say it?
Already he’s moving on. It was reported, around the same time yesterday, that Chris has signed on to a new movie with Daniel Craig called Knives Out. The film has been described as a murder mystery. I wonder if Chris, after playing earnest and righteous Steve Rogers for so long, and being associated with the character for almost a decade, will go straight into dark and twisty. He’s been trying to tell us for years that that’s who he is: a thinker, a dark and twisty thinker.
Remember his Rolling Stone interview when Captain America: Civil War came out? In that piece, they called him the “anxious Avenger”. And Robert Downey Jr and Scarlett Johansson talked about how he’s in his own head a lot of the time, how he’s basically Joaquin Phoenix trapped in Zac Efron’s body. I re-read this article today, interested in how I would feel about it with this new context, now that Chris seems to have put a period on his time as Cap. I wonder too about where he’s going to try to “fit” next, how he’s surveying the landscape, what his peers, or who he would regard as his peers, have been doing while he’s been doing what he’s been doing. Peers like the aforementioned Joaquin Phoenix and Ryan Gosling, and also Jake Gyllenhaal. Or … Bradley Cooper. Chris Evans has always said he’s wanted to direct more. What he’s directed so far has not been all that special. Maybe in three or five years, we’ll get Chris Evans’s A Star is Born equivalent.
