In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Chris Evans jokingly teased what could be in store for Captain America in Avengers: Endgame. They say he’s joking, but is he really?
The Hollywood Reporter cover featuring Chris Evans for March 27, 2019.
A majority of the Marvel fandom still seems to be an absolute wreck over Avengers: Infinity War, and the prospects of what will happen in Avengers: Endgame isn’t easing fans’ worries anytime soon. As a fan looking from the outside in, the wait between movies is an anxiety-filled one with lots of worrying and stress. But as an actor looking from the inside out, things seem to be pretty chill — that is, at least for one the actors: Chris Evans.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Evans talked openly about his role as Captain America, also adding that he’s watched some of Avengers: Endgame already. When asked about revealing what happens at the end, Evans laughed it off saying, “I wish I could. Uh, it’s — I mean — it’s a good one. It’s a real good one. I saw, like, the first hour of it.”
So exactly what did he see in that one hour? THR jokingly asked in response if he watched it up to the point where Captain America dies. To that, Evans responded, “Right, exactly. After I die by Tony’s hand, I just said, ‘You know what? I can’t watch this.'”
That, of course, was just a joke and not a major spoiler — at least we hope. But it looks like Evans has a healthy sense of humor even though he’ll be moving on from playing Captain America.
This might be his playful response to his tweet last year that gave some fans the idea that the Captain would die in Endgame. Evans had to clarify the tweet didn’t necessarily mean Cap would die, it was just a sincere goodbye to playing the character.
Hopefully, with the few lines he had in Avengers: Infinity War, Cap won’t die during the first third of the next film. And we sincerely hope that Tony Stark has nothing to with his death. This one will definitely have to be marked as humor and not a spoiler, but Evans must certainly be on Marvel’s watch list by now just for telling a fake spoiler.
Unfortunately, if that sucker-punch of a joke wasn’t enough for Captain America fans, Evans joked a second time in the interview that Captain America would die. He revealed that he got choked up three times either while watching or filming the movie. And when THR asked if that’s because Captain America dies, Evans said, “Right. It’s hard. Seeing my own death. It’s going to be a long movie, that’s for sure. The first edit clocked in over three hours. My funeral’s like an hour.”
Once again THR stressed that Evans was laughing while saying all of this, signaling he wasn’t being serious. Still, there’s a 50-50 chance that Chris Evans is telling the truth, so we can’t know for sure until we see the movie.
One thing that is for sure is that Evans made the right decision to take on the character and play him over the span of nearly eight years. It’s something that a lot of actors don’t get to do. But when they do, it allows them to really grow and develop their character over time. In Evans’ case, sometimes that means blurring the line between themselves and their character (because he’s truly a real-life hero at this point).
It’s strange to think, as Evans revealed in the interview, that he turned down the role several times — feeling confident that he made the right decision by saying no. It wasn’t until he received a call from Robert Downey Jr. that he finally changed his mind and joined him in the franchise. Their camaraderie behind the scenes makes Downey’s initial invitation even sweeter, knowing that Downey had faith in Evans and still considers him to be a leading figure for the MCU.
“People love to say — and I’ll eat it up — that I’m kind of the progenitor of this whole universe,” Downey said to THR. “But if you want to talk about it in terms of team building, and you want to talk about it as the most successful creative relay race in the history of cinema, he was the critical leg.”
Captain America has to exit the franchise somehow, and he can either do that by retiring or dying. It’s sad to say, but at least there’s some comfort in knowing that Chris Evans is comfortable with whatever happens to the first Avenger.