Marvel Cinematic Universe fans weathered years of back-and-forth before Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers passed Captain America’s shield to Sam Wilson in Avengers: Endgame. By the time it happened, the departure felt like it had been timed just right, especially with an incredible payoff after the seed with Thor’s hammer had been planted way back in Age of Ultron. The decade-long experience for Evans, however, almost didn’t happen. He did, in fact, turn down the role when Marvel Studios first approached him for 2011’s The First Avenger. Then he reconsidered after some advice from Mom Evans.
That tidbit arrives near the end of a lengthy Esquire interview (to promote Evans role in Apple TV+’s upcoming Defending Jacob). Writer Brady Langmann met with Lisa Evans after a few hours with Chris, much of which was spent with the actor unable to comment upon reports of his involvement as the singing dentist in a Little Shop Of Horrors remake. Lots of “jazz hands” and uncomfortable expressions apparently went down, but the feature did produce this wonderful revelation from Lisa, who convinced him to seize an opportunity for which most actors can only dream:
“His biggest fear was losing his anonymity He said, ‘I have a career now where I can do work I really like. I can walk my dog. Nobody bothers me. Nobody wants to talk to me. I can go wherever I want. And the idea of losing that is terrifying to me.’ … I said to him, ‘Look, you want to do acting work for the rest of your life? If you do this part, you will have the opportunity. You’ll never have to worry about paying the rent. If you take the part, you just have to decide, It’s not going to affect my life negatively — it will enable it.’”
And the rest was history. Just think, we would have never received that killer ending line from Evans if not for his persuasive mother, and mom is always right. Now, Evans can not only let his Smug Flag fly for Rian Johnson, but he’s also taken on a challenging dramatic role (with Defending Jacob), in which he plays an Assistant District Attorney and father of a young murder suspect. Talk about a rough position.
In the meantime, Evans did make it clear to Esquire that he can’t really talk about the possible Little Shop Of Horrors yet. Up until this point, he’s only addressed those reports with a surprised (?) tooth emoji on Twitter.
— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) February 24, 2020
! (Via Esquire)