Chris Evans Says Captain America Is The Best Decision He Ever Made, Robert Downey Jr. Helped Seal It

It’s hard to imagine anyone but Chris Evans in the part of Captain Americain the Marvel Cinematic Universe (though countless others auditioned for the part). Perhaps even harder to imagine is that Evans himself was reluctant to take the part at first. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter Evans opened up about his trepidation to take on the role and the daunting task that was in front of him when Marvel Studios made their offer. The actor revealed that friends pushed him to changing his mind, telling him he was making his decision based on fear, which Evans agreed with and caused him to suit up.

“And it really just kind of clicked and it really did start to make sense to me that way, so I said ‘Yeah,’” Evans said. “I think that’s why the whole first movie, my hair was on fire, you’re so scared just like ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m doing this and please don’t backfire, please don’t blow up in my face. And not only did it not, but it was the best decision I’ve ever made, and I really owe that to Kevin Feige for being persistent and helping me avoid making a giant mistake….To be honest, all the things that I was fearing never really came to fruition.”

Evans also confirmed that one of the voices of reason for him was none other than Iron Man himself, his MCU frenemy, Robert Downey Jr. The actor recalled that he and Downey shared an agent, prompting a phone call from the two-time Academy Award nominee with some words of comfort about the Marvel Method.

“I knew where they wanted to go, that’s part of the initial deal, not just for Captain America but for Avengers movies and that was daunting,” Evans said. “And just hearing him kind of give you that little nudge of encouragement, it just made me feel a little bit more like I was part of the gang and not so intimidated. I guess it was a double edged sword, on the one hand it makes you feel very welcome but on the other hand you just think ‘Oh man, I gotta stand next to this guy? He’s crushing this role. I don’t want to be the weak link here.’ But it was a very nice comforting thing to hear that he was in my corner.

As of last year’s Avengers: Endgame, both actors have hung up their helmets with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and will seemingly not be back for any films in the forseable future. Rumors persist that both will appear in some capacity in either the Black Widow feature film or perhaps The Falcon and the Winter Soldier TV series but both have denied any future involvement in the MCU.