Avengers: Endgame’s Chris Evans Says Quiet Moments With Robert Downey Jr. Are His Favorite Marvel Memories

Avengers: Endgame has been giving fans all kinds of feels for the past week, but it looks like some pretty heartwarming moments have happened offscreen as well. In a recent video shared on Marvel’s YouTube page, several Endgame stars broke down their favorite moments from being part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For Steve Rogers/Captain America actor Chris Evans, that apparently meant some less-hectic moments with his co-star, Robert Downey Jr.

“I’ve had a few quiet moments with Downey.” Evans reveals in the video. “He’s always really been such a wonderful mentor in a lot of ways, and I really kinda said to myself ‘Don’t forget this.’”

Given the long and winding arc that Steve and Downey’s Tony Stark/Iron Man have had in the MCU – going from teammates to adversaries to pretty significant allies – the notion that the two actors also had such a rapport when cameras weren’t rolling will certainly delight quite a few Marvel fans.

“What’s interesting about these characters is that they’re all heroes,” co-director Joe Russo explained during the film’s commentary track. “And that, irrespective of the events of Civil War and the fact that they caused physical damage to Rhodey, when aliens show up with the intent to destroy the Earth, he does not hesitate, as a hero, to invite in other heroes who can help him defend the planet. And I think it will be a much different situation if Tony were here. If Tony and Steve had to see each other for the first time, it would be much more complicated.”

“Tony’s too intelligent and has too big of an ego to be a stooge to the government,” Russo noted. “He will take whatever by-product came out of Civil War and use it to his own advantage and to keep the Avengers alive in a way that he feels like is less the compromise, the better for him. So, I think he has not been actively pursuing bringing Steve Rogers and Natasha and Sam and Wanda to justice. He has in fact been turning the other way. “

And while it’s unclear exactly what’s in store for Downey and Evans as the MCU moves forward into “Phase Four”, it’s hard to deny that both actors have made a pretty massive impact on the franchise.

“[Evans’] suspension of his own disbelief, regardless of whatever doubts he had, is the reason all these other worlds are able to be built,” Downey Jr. explained in a recent interview. “Starting with Avengers, and then Guardians, and Black Panther. People love to say — and I’ll eat it up — that I’m kind of the progenitor of this whole universe. 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.”

“I’ve been in hundreds of scenes with this guy,” Downey Jr. added. “Nobody laughs more than him. Sometimes he makes me self-conscious, like, ‘Should I be more fun?’ There’s a little bit of, like, just trying to shake out the anxiety. And I’ve also seen him, over the last 10 years, go from being someone who had laughably real social anxiety to someone who has grown more and more comfortable in their own skin.”

Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame are in theaters now. Spider-Man: Far From Home will land in theaters on July 2nd.