Although Chris Evans has been booked and busy for much of the last two decades, it’s been a while since he’s played a customary romantic lead or love
Although Chris Evans has been booked and busy for much of the last two decades, it’s been a while since he’s played a customary romantic lead or love interest. Not to discount the love story between Steve Rogers/Captain America and Peggy Carter, or the attractive qualities of bad-boy Evans characters in fan-loved pieces of knitwear—but with Celine Song’s buzzy modern romantic drama, Materialists, the star gets to show off a softer side sans super suits, fight sequences, or major VFX.
Song’s second feature centers on Dakota Johnson’s jaded matchmaker Lucy, who meets her romantic ideal—a “unicorn” named Harry (Pedro Pascal)—the same night she’s unexpectedly reunited with her ex-boyfriend John (Evans), a struggling actor and cater waiter. But while Harry and John are competing for Lucy’s affection, they aren’t doing so in a stereotypically hypermasculine way.
He and Pascal, Evans says, play “such different men. We offer such different things in different ways. There’s such a hierarchical difference between our statuses, and so much tension between it. But [Celine] puts it all in a handshake. She puts it all in the hello.”
“You forget that it’s only her second film,” he continues. “She’s so dialed in. When there’s a great take, she gets so excited. And as actors, it’s like praise from a parent. You just want to see your parents proud of you. So when you see her get excited, it just makes your day.”
In addition to Materialists, which opened to positive reviews on Evans’s 44th birthday, the actor has several stimulating projects in the pipeline. In August, he stars alongside Margaret Qualley in Ethan Coen’s Honey Don’t, an R-rated caper comedy in which he plays a corrupt minister and “big old douchebag” (his words). After that comes the action-adventure Sacrifice with Anya Taylor-Joy and Sam Richardson, where Evans’s character is “somewhere in between” a dreamboat and a douchebag.
Other items on Evans’s high hopes list, which he shared in a wide-ranging, reflective conversation with VF, include starring in a movie musical or reviving a specific project in which he was set to sing and dance; trying his hand at directing again; and working with both his brother Scott, and Evans’s wife, fellow actor Alba Baptista, for whom he’s “trying” to learn more Portuguese.
Vanity Fair: What was the overall vibe on the Materialists set?
Chris Evans: I love Dakota and Pedro so much. They’ve been friends for a while, so I felt like I was third-wheeling it a little bit, but they just enveloped me. We just enjoy each other’s company so much. I think we’re all really proud of the movie, and that’s always nice. I’ve had great experiences on movies that ended up not being great, which is fine, but the fact that we’re all proud of this, on top of the fact that we all do love each other so dearly, is icing on the cake.
We hung out constantly. Unfortunately, Pedro and I didn’t get much time on set—but we had plenty of time off set.
You and Pedro both are playing masculine guys, but not stereotypically so. Can you talk about that active, and how you approached that initial handshake and hello?
We only have a couple scenes together. One of the things that Celine is amazing at is her withholding of certain dialogue. It’s almost the notes that she doesn’t play that add the tension. There’s so much to pull from as a person, with your own experience in life and the competitiveness between men—specifically around a woman.
The first time we did that scene where I come up and shake his hand, you [go in with] a slightly too difficult grasp. Or you’re being warm with your tone, but you’re being a little bit different with your eyes. We did one take, they yelled, “Cut!” and we both were like, “Ooh, ooh, I don’t like you.” “I don’t like you.” And you feel it right away.
Are you comfortable watching yourself, or not?
No, I hate it.
Do you wait to see a project until the premiere? How do you absorb your own work?
I can’t do it at the premiere. No way. I tried to do that once, for a movie I did a long time ago, The Loss of A Teardrop Diamond. I was like, “Oh, I’ll sit through the premiere.” And so I’m in the row with the whole cast, and the movie begins. I got about six minutes in, and walked up the aisle and hid in the bathroom for the next two hours.
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