Chris Evans

As Captain America, Chris Evans (birthname: Christopher Robert Evans) is one of the central actors in the Marvel Comics Universe. His athletic profile and straight-man likability are keys to his massive success in anchoring one of Hollywood’s biggest franchises.

Evans has diversified beyond the Steve Evans/Captain America role, acting in major hits such as Knives Out (2019), Free Guy (2021), and Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story spinoff, Lightyear (2022), with the voices of Taika Waititi, Keke Palmer, Dale Soules, and Peter Sohn. 

The first notable feature film credit for Chris Evans was his leading-man role in the thriller Cellular (2004), with Jason Statham, Kim Basinger, and William H. Macy. Before Captain America, Evans’s initial foray into the MCU was in Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), in which Evans played Johnny Storm/Human Torch alongside Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Laurence Fishburne, and Kerry Washington.

Also in 2007, Evans appeared as a voice actor with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mako, and Patrick Stewart in TMNT, the fourth Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie in the franchise. Evans’ busy 2007 continued with a diverse range of movies including Danny Boyle’s science fiction drama, Sunshine, with Cillian Murphy and Rose Byrne, and The Nanny Diaries, with Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Alicia Keys, and Paul Giamatti.

Chris Evans suffered from some scathing reviews for several of his performances during this period, including director Jodie Markell’s Tennessee Williams adaptation, The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2008), with Bryce Dallas Howard and Ellen Burstyn, and the super-soldier action movie, Push (2009), with Dakota Fanning.

Evans’s one shift into the DC Comics world was as Capt. Jake Jensen in Sylvain White’s The Losers (2010), with Zoe Saldana and Idris Elba. Perhaps Evans’s best movie to date, although a box-office disappointment, was Edgar Wright’s vitally inventive comedy, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), which he parlayed into a different, romantic comedy, What’s Your Number? (2011), with Anna Faris.

Making the crucial move of his career, Chris Evans acted long-term with Marvel Studios in 2010 to play Captain America in a planned series of movies. In 2011, his notable and consistent run as the Captain began with Captain America: The First Avenger, with Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, and Sebastian Stan, earning a worldwide box-office total of nearly $371 million, thus launching one of the biggest blockbuster franchises in Hollywood history.

Evans was a central part of The Avengers (2012), with Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, and Jeremy Renner, which cemented the MCU as Hollywood’s juggernaut franchise with a global box office take of $1.5 billion, making it one of the highest-grossing movies of all time.

Evans took a break from his MCU schedule with a tougher action role in Bong Joon-ho’s science future thriller, Snowpiercer (2013), with Ed Harris, Song Kang-ho, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, and Jamie Bell. Evans proceeded through his Captain America projects, including Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) (earning $714.4 globally), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) (taking in worldwide a total nearly matching its predecessor, $1.4 billion), as well as the next two conjoined entries in the saga, both directed by Anthony and Joe Russo: Avengers: Infinity War (2018) (a worldwide gross over $2 billion), and Avengers: Endgame (2019) (shattering all previous box office records for a chart-topping global number of $2.8 billion). The cumulative global box office of Evans’ MCU movies is $8.8 billion.

Expanding his roster of roles, Chris Evans found that life beyond Captain America involved playing a rich ladies’ man in Rian Johnson’s hit whodunit, Knives Out (2019), with Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, and Lakeith Stanfield; the intense family drama for Apple TV +, Defending Jacob (2020), with Michelle Dockery, Cherry Jones, and J.K. Simmons; and the lead, Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear, in Disney/Pixar’s outer space adventure, Lightyear (2022).

Evans reunited with the Russo brothers for the action thriller, The Gray Man (2022), with Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas, Alfre Woodard, and Billy Bob Thornton, and continued with De Armas on the romantic action-adventure for Apple TV +, Ghosted (date to be announced), including co-stars Adrien Brody, Amy Sedaris, and Tim Blake Nelson.

For Amazon Studios, Evans is set to co-star with Dwayne Johnson in director Jake Kasdan’s globetrotting action-comedy, Red One (date to be announced), and will co-star with Scarlett Johansson in director Jason Bateman’s Project Artemis (date to be announced). In 2014, Evans launched his second career as a director, with the romantic comedy, Before We Go (2014), with Alice Eve, and has reported that he plans to direct more features in the future.