Chris Evans doesn’t think he’ll be reprising his role as Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He explains why in a conversation with Scarlett Johansson for Variety‘s Actor on Actors issue, on stands on Nov. 12.
Johansson, who plays Black Widow in the Marvel films, is in this year’s awards conversation for dual performances in Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” and Taika Waititi’s “Jojo Rabbit.” Evans, who has played Captain America in a total of 11 films, seemingly concluded the character’s journey with last spring’s “Avengers: Endgame.” He can next be seen in “Knives Out,” a murder mystery directed by Rian Johnson.
“Would you come back?” Johansson asks him.
“To Marvel?” Evans responds. “You never say never. I love the character. I don’t know.”
But when pressed, Evans gives a more definitive answer. “It’s not a hard no, but it’s not an eager yes either,” Evans says. “There are other things that I’m working on right now.
I think Cap had such a tricky act to stick the landing, and I think they did a really nice job letting him complete his journey.
If you’re going to revisit it, it can’t be a cash grab. It can’t be just because the audience wants to be excited. What are we revealing? What are we adding to the story? A lot of things would have to come together.”
Johansson agrees that the last “Avengers” film found a proper send-off for Captain America, who is also known as Steve Rogers.
“I wasn’t there for the last third of the film or whatever,” says Johansson, whose character exits in the middle of the movie.
“I actually had no idea what was going to happen. I don’t know how it worked, exactly, if it was scripted. It was such a beautiful cathartic ending, and I loved that for Steve. I think he deserved that. It was all his happiness.”
Evans thinks about it some more: “It’d be a shame to sour that,” he says. “I’m very protective of it. It was such a precious time, and jumping onto the movie was a terrifying prospect to me.
I said no a bunch of times, and there’s a million and one ways it could have gone wrong. It almost feels like maybe we should let this one sit.”
“Variety Studio: Actors on Actors” is an Emmy Award-winning series that highlights the best TV and movie performances of the year.
In addition to Evans and Johansson, the latest season includes conversations between Brad Pitt and Adam Sandler, Jennifer Lopez and Robert Pattinson, Laura Dern and Sterling K. Brown, and Kristen Stewart and Shia LaBeouf, among others.
The series will air on PBS SoCal starting on Jan. 2.
