CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER Interview with Chris Evans #CAPTAINAMERICAEVENT

If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, then you were probably with me while I was interviewing Chris Evans for the upcoming movie CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER. I can’t wait for you all to see the movie because it is FANTASTIC!

I’ve got to say that I may have swooned a bit before gathering my wits to ask questions. 😉  Though this was an interview that I enjoyed because Chris Evans is witty, funny, and honest in his answers. Okay, enough about me…I know you want to know what Chris had to say about CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER.

Here are some of my favorite questions from the interview.

What qualities in Capt. America do you find in yourself?

How do you answer that question? He’s such a good guy. I think he’s always trying to do better. You know, I don’t think I’m as good of a man as he is, but I think as good of a man as he is, he’s always trying to improve. So I think the one thing I am working towards on a daily basis is just trying to find ways to evolve.

Do you find that character [CAPTAIN AMERICA] has good qualities, and plays a role model?

Oh, completely.  Yeah.  When I took the role, there’s a kid that I grew up with.  This kid named Charlie.  Charlie Morris.  He’ll love this.  But he won’t.  He’ll hate this, ’cause he’s Capt. America.  He’s like, the best kid I know.  He was an Eagle scout.  And being an Eagle scout is not easy.  You’ve got to really do it for a long time.  But he’s just such a good man, and he genuinely, genuinely puts himself last.  He lives by a code.  When nobody’s looking, he’s the man that he wants to be, and that’s impressive.

And so when I took the role, I told Charlie, “Listen.  I’m modeling this after you.”  And it’s such a great character to aspire to be.  You know.  It’s such a great character.  If you’ve got to go to set every day and try and tweak your brain into a certain state of mind, that’s a pretty good place to be.

How long and difficult was [the elevator fight sequence] to shoot?

That was tough.  That was the first thing we shot.  That was the first scene in the movie.  It was three days, and it was awful.  It was awful, because you have these great stuntmen that I had worked with for about a month prior, choreographing that fight in a warehouse where we had built a little fake model elevator.  So you’re rehearsing the dance.  It’s literally a dance.  It’s, you know, you might as well be on your feet, doing the salsa.  It literally is just rhythm and steps and beats, and, you know, with every person that you disable and drop, the fight continues with me.

So, as these guys go off and take coffee breaks, I’m stuck there, doing every single aspect of the fight.  And there’s no masks.  So there wasn’t much opportunity to hide with a stuntman.  And it’s just, it’s brutal.  It’s the type of thing where working out for two, three hours a day is exhausting.  But for a scene like that they yell action and you give everything, even though it’s a fake fight.  It’s exhausting.  They call cut.  You got about 30 seconds to kind of catch your breath.  And then you do it again.

And you do that all day, so by the end of the day you realize, I’ve been working out all day.  All day!  This isn’t normal.  This isn’t human.  …you fall asleep before your head hits the pillow.  So at the end of those three days, you know, at the end of this scene, there was just this collective applause.  It really felt like a giant accomplishment, and a solid way to kick off the movie, but it was a chore.  But worth it.

What was it like, seeing yourself as Capt. America for the first time?

Terrifying.  Because I think the first time I saw it, it was back when I was still pretty insecure, and a little apprehensive about taking the role.  So, it was — it was a real dichotomy. There was a simultaneous joy, but at the same time, a deep fear.  But that’s eroded over time, and now it’s very familiar, and it feels very comfortable.  It feels great now, and damn, if I had said no, I would have been the biggest fool on the planet.

What was your most memorable moment during filming? 

When I saw Robert Redford walk in the door.  Everyone was nervous that day.  Everybody was scared.  There was a whole buzz on the whole set.  But it’s Robert Redford.  I grew up watching this guy.  He is a living legend.  So it was intimidating.  It was exciting.  It was rewarding.  It was surreal.  So, for me, just sharing the screen with him, I mean, c’mon.

With the fighting styles, what was your preparation like with the martial arts?  Are you comfortable with it?

Comfortable now.  You know.  In the beginning it’s a tricky process, and it’s tough realizing…certain things, you’re not good at right away.  You just want to be like, “I can do that,” and then you’re awful and you’re like, “I guess I can’t do that.”  One of the things that I had — in between the first Capt. America and the first Avengers, I had played the Capt. America video game.  I don’t know if anyone’s played the video game.  I’m not really a video game guy.  But someone handed me the controller, and I was playing, and the way Cap moves in the video game, there’s a fluidity and it’s very acrobatic.

It’s very aerial.  Very — he uses his environment, and it’s almost this beautiful, smooth dance, and when I first met with the Russo [brothers], I said, “Have you played the video game?”  And truthfully, I swear to God, they said: “You know what?  We referenced the video game, too.”  I said, “Good, good, we’re on the same page.  But that means we need to incorporate a little bit more of an acrobatic approach to fighting.”  And so we put myself in gymnastic classes, which is something I always wanted to do, kind of, anyway.  I mean, I wanted to go play on like, the balance beam, but they were like, “No.

We gotta get you doing –”  It was more like it was tumbling, essentially.  Parkour-style gymnastic stuff.  Flipping, and spinning, and just kind of getting a sense of your body in the air.  So we did about two months of that.  We did two months, a few hours, each day, and it was invaluable.  It really lends itself to a lot of those fight scenes.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER Clips and Featurettes

TV Spot

Engine Room Secure Clip

The Winter Soldier Featurette

Full Length Trailer

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER Activity Book

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CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER Opens April 4, 2014.

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