I'm Your Biggest Fan

We may as well get into this right now – I absolutely adore the actor, Chris Evans.

I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m just a sucker for a pretty face. Ok, well, you’re not wrong.

But I appreciate him as an actor as well, and I wonder if you know him beyond one of the most iconic roles in the Marvel Universe. I think we can all agree that as casting goes, Chris Evans was the perfect Captain America.

I actually first discovered him in his first foray with Marvel as the snarky, egotistical Johnny Storm in the “Fantastic Four.”  This was another role I feel was cast perfectly. In his late 20s, this was his breakout role after several films that were easily forgotten. He got a follow-up in “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” a role where you could see maturity in the actor as well as the character.

You may have read that Evans turned down the role of Cap more than once. He was worried about a couple of things – signing to be an OG Avenger required a commitment to a 9-movie contract (he negotiated it down to 6), and overall, he appeared in 11 Marvel Cinematic Universe films. His other concern, very valid, was that his stardom may blow up and he’d lose his anonymity, and that has certainly happened. In the end, he says he’d be kicking himself if he hadn’t taken the role that defined his career, and I know I’m super glad he finally came to his senses.

I know a lot about this actor – he was raised in the Boston suburbs, one of four children. His mother runs a youth theater company in Concord, Mass. He’s very close to his mom. His brother Scott is also an actor, appearing as a regular for a season in Grace and Frankie, the Barbie movie, and in the recent Netflix series “Running Point.” Chris was a theater kid in high school, served as a camp counselor at theater camp, and interned for a casting office in New York and, through those contacts, got picked up for a short-lived pilot called “Opposite Sex,” also starring Milo Ventimiglia. He has a rescue dog named Dodger that he adopted in 2016 while on location in Savannah filming “Gifted,” one of my favorite movies. He’s a pescatarian. He tap dances and has always aspired to make a musical after acting in many in high school. He loves Disney and the outdoors, fall and winter, trees, and the New England Patriots, and he dislikes Los Angeles, the ocean, summer, and he struggles with anxiety when it comes to interviews and red carpets. In 2020, he launched A Starting Point with friends Mark Kassen and Joe Kiani, a social engagement platform that provides information directly from elected officials to the electorate. He’s also been very outspoken on gay rights.

I’m beginning to understand why my daughter gives me so much shit about being obsessed with him. In fact, she lumps me in with his fandom, which is not a compliment. Chris was a bachelor for a long time and was very open and honest on his social media accounts, which made a lot of his fans feel as if they really knew him. At some point, he was deemed “America’s Boyfriend,” and a lot of people interpreted that as “so you’re saying there’s still a chance.”  When doing press for the Apple TV movie “Ghosted,” he told someone in an interview that he was “laser focused” on finding the perfect partner, when in fact at the time, he was dating a Portuguese actress 13 years his junior who would eventually become his wife.  A lot of his fandom turned on him (see young girls). This prompted one of his young fans to write an open letter to him, posted all over social media, saying since he said he was still looking when he really wasn’t, he owed everyone an apology, and could he please break up with his fiancée so he could become America’s Boyfriend again. 

It's possible I really am obsessed.

While I certainly don’t know the guy, I find his public persona to be very endearing. When he was active on social media, he shared a lot of stories, many self-deprecating, and he seemed like a very humble, unassuming person. His closeness with his mother and siblings I found to be very sweet. He also shared how his inner circle continues to be friends that he grew up with. He said they keep him grounded and don’t let him get too impressed with himself. He has always maintained a home in the Boston area as well as one in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles but has decided to sell the LA home in recent weeks. He shared in interviews promoting his Christmas movie “Red One” that he and his wife have also purchased a home in her native Portugal. He has also said more than once that he considers often how long he’ll continue acting. As a kid he wanted to be an imagineer for Disney, excelling in art. He enjoys being creative in other ways besides acting, and I think we can all safely assume that if Chris never worked again, he’d probably be pretty financially set.

His first major role was as a jock in “Not Another Teen Movie,” a parody of popular teen movies in 2001. He’s well known for an iconic scene in the movie where he comes on to a girl “dressed” as a banana split – his nether regions are covered in whipped cream and a cherry, and when he turns to leave the room, we see that he has a banana secured in his behind. He also appeared in “A Perfect Score,” an MTV-produced flick about high school students trying to steal SAT scores. This one is significant in that it starred a very young Scarlett Johansson, with whom Chris would later join in “The Nanny Diaries” and as an Avenger in the MCU. He says she is his closest friend in the industry.

Of all the movies he’s made, my favorite is “What’s Your Number?”, a rom com with Anna Faris that has him portraying Colin Shea, a bachelor in Boston who is neighbors with Faris’s Ally Darling. While helping plan her sister’s wedding, Ally learns there is an average number of men most women have had sex with, and she’s ahead of the national average. She hires the “dangerously sexy” Colin, who comes from a family of police officers, to help her track down her old flames in hopes of settling with one of them and stopping the count. She abhors that he can have as many sexual conquests as he likes as well as his habit of disappearing the morning after so his sexual conquests will leave with no strings attached. It's funny and he and Faris have great chemistry. This movie also features Anthony Mackie, whom Chris appears with in several movies – and to whom he passes Cap’s shield at the end of “Avengers: Endgame.”

He's made a few that were critical favorites – “Snowpiercer,” a dystopian futuristic thriller from director Bong Joon Ho; “Sunshine,” another sci-fi thriller from director Danny Boyle, and “Puncture,” a true story about a Texas attorney who, battling drug addiction, works to help medical professionals secure a safer needle during the AIDS epidemic. He stars in this movie with his friend Mark Kassen, one of his partners in A Starting Point. He also starred opposite Michelle Dockery of “Downton Abbey” fame in an Apple TV series, “Defending Jacob,” based on the book by Wiliam Landay. This is a great series, just be prepared if you’ve read the book – they take liberties with the ending.

He's also been a fantastic villain, portraying Christopher Plummer’s murderous grandson in “Knives Out,” his first role after leaving his MCU contract, and the evil Lloyd Hansen in Netflix’s “The Gray Man,” based on the awesome book series by Mark Greaney.

And his comic book roles were not limited to Captain America and Johnny Storm – he also starred in a sci-fi thriller called “Push,” as well as “The Losers,” boasting a great cast including Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, and Idris Elba, with Chris as one of my favorite of his characters, Jake, the computer nerd.

He’s made some clunkers as well. Maybe the two worst are “London” with then-girlfriend Jessica Biel and a young Jason Statham, and “Fierce People,” with a cast that included Donald Sutherland, Diane Lane, Kristen Stewart, and Elizabeth Perkins. For me, both movies are pretty much unwatchable, and he has acknowledged more than once that these were big disappointments.

He has since voiced Buzz Lightyear in the Disney Pixar feature “Lightyear;”  appeared in the Netflix feature “Pain Hustlers” with Emily Blunt (also very good); a fun “Romancing the Stone”-esque rom-com, ”Ghosted,” with Ana de Armas on Apple TV; and a fun Christmas movie last year with The Rock and J.K. Simmons, “Red One.” 

Next week, I already have tickets for the first of three movies in 2025 in which he’ll star. “The Materialists” is written and directed by Celine Song, who also wrote 2023’s romantic drama “Past Lives” and is based on her real-life experience as a matchmaker in New York City. Dakota Johnson stars as a successful matchmaker who finds herself having to choose between millionaire Pedro Pascal, who can give her everything she ever dreamed of, and old flame John, played by Chris, who’s a struggling actor scraping by.  Poor Dakota, right?

Later this year, he’ll play a crooked evangelist in “Honey Don’t,” a dark comedy from Ethan Coen, of the famous Coen brothers, and his wife Tricia Cooke and also starring Margaret Qualley and Aubrey Plaza, and later in September in Roman Gavras’s “Sacrifice,” where he’ll play an actor who suffered a breakdown and during a star-studded charity event where he’s attempting a comeback, a radical group crashes the island where the event is being held, seeking to find a mystical artifact tied to an ancient prophecy and to sacrifice some of the people in attendance.  This movie is rumored to premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

As far as his stint as Captain America, he has said many times that he feels his story has seen its arc and it would take something very special for him to return. But as long as they’re making Marvel movies, there will be hope that he may return. Currently there is talk he’ll be included in either the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday” and/or “Avengers: Secret Wars.”  With the multiverse, there are lots of opportunities, as well as the possibility of him returning as an evil version of himself. I’m no different than any other MCU fan – I’m anxious to see how the stories of these beloved characters play out, and I hope we do get to see the original Captain America one more time.

The final piece of the fan puzzle for me is the treasure trove of fan fiction written for Chris and his characters. I just discovered fanfics in the last five years, and I’ve read hundreds of great stories that build on these characters I've come to love. I’ve met some of the authors and even tried my hand at a few stories, particularly for his character Colin Shea from “What’s Your Number?”

I’m sure I’m no different than a lot of people – my celebrity crushes started at age 5 with the Monkees’ Davy Jones and over the years, I found plenty of others for whom I had a special affection. Loving a celebrity, especially a movie star you can watch on the big screen, has been around since the beginning of making movies. Chris Evans is in great company in my many years as a fan of celebrities, and I look forward to watching him bring more characters to life for many years. And if I’m a member of the infamous Chris Evans Fandom, I can live with that.