Flexing, Tenderheart Bear, and Captain America: Exclusive Chris Evans Interview

The hotel suite had been transformed into an interview room with a gorgeous view of LA’s skyline. Twenty five white wooden chairs, outdoor wedding style, filled one side of the room. The other half, a covered table and chair. A chair that would be holding up Chris Evans. Captain America! I took a seat in the middle of the second row, less than 6 feet from where the dapper and charming Chris Evans was going to sit for our #CaptainAmericaEvent Interview.

(Thanks to Disney/Marvel/ABC for this all expenses paid opportunity!)

Exclusive Chris Evans Interview

It’s not everyday that a mom from the Midwest gets the chance to interview Chris Evans about Captain America: Civil War that hits theaters May 6th. During my flight to LA, I filled a notebook with questions for every interview. Even that couldn’t prepare me for Chris Evans crashing Paul Bettany’s (Vision) interview! Jokes were flying, laughter ensued, and for 10 minutes we all felt like best friends at a frat party. Seeing how well Chris and Paul got along, we had to find out if fun and pranks were common on the set of Captain America: Civil War too.

You know, everyone wants there to be pranks and it’s not so much pranks as it’s just a camaraderie. When you’re on set, you’re a little tired, to be honest, and the truth is, you really are there to work. Really. Certain movies I’ve done were comedies, where everyone is a little more loose. On these movies there are people who are really there to work and you don’t want to diminish their experience or disrespect their process. So for the most part on set, you’re not, not tame, but we, we still have fun, you know. Days when it’s just me and Paul, we’re giggling a lot more. There are certain actors who really are austere in their approach and you really want to respect that. Off set is where the real disaster happens. – Chris Evans

Photo Credit: Coralie Seright – Lovebugs and Postcards

The night before the #CaptainAmericaEvent Interviews, we got the chance to screen Captain America: Civil War. As I sat there listening to Chris Evans answer our questions, my mind kept replaying the helicopter flexing scene with Captain America. It ranked third for me, only because the airport scene and the motorcycle chase are flipping AWESOME! But that helicopter scene….tingles I tell ya! I wanted to know if that scene was the hardest for him 😉 and the answer actually surprised me!

My arm to this day is not the same. It’s a fake helicopter obviously, and we did the first couple takes and you’re holding and then it wasn’t- the helicopter, so you’re just like faking nothing [LAUGHS] and you’re like ‘can we – let’s, let’s drift the helicopter’. It’s on a rig, so you can actually move it. But then they did move it and it actually required….you actually have to hold it and when you’re holding it, you know. I did something. Not like I’d get any sympathy out of you any way [LAUGHTER] obviously I didn’t. But I really did bang something up. It was a tricky scene, but that, those scenes, they’re good scenes. – Chris Evans

Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) Photo Credit: Zade Rosenthal © Marvel 2016

The helicopter scene did injure Chris Evans, but it wasn’t the hardest scene. Evans said that “I think it’s harder doing scenes with Downey” and no that’s not because Captain America and Iron Man are battling head to head in Captain America: Civil War.

It’s because he’s such a, he’s such a force, you know what I mean. He’s so good and he owns the oxygen, and he comes in the room and he’s powerful and the spine of the film is that conflict. So when you have those scenes, I mean, you’ve all seen the movie. There’s a limited amount of scenes where it’s really just us, when we’re not fighting, just us talking. Those, that’s the framework for the conflict. And if those scenes don’t – if you don’t invest in those moments, the conflict is going to be sour and fall flat. So those few scenes that we have where it’s just him and I were really intimidating, to make sure you match him, you know what I mean. He’s scary because he’s so good, he’s so good. He just owns – he’s just good at anything he does. He changes things on the fly so you want to try and keep up sparring wise, so that you can kind of hang with him. So those scenes were the most terrifying. Terrifying, I’ll say terrifying, terrifying. [LAUGHTER] – Chris Evans

Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War L to R: Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) Photo Credit: Zade Rosenthal © Marvel 2016

It’s no secret that Captain America: Civil War has superheroes choosing sides. #TeamCap vs #TeamIronMan and this Civil War is LOADED with fight scenes, both with powers and hand-to-hand. I will be sharing my review of Captain America: Civil War on May 6th, but right now I can share what Team Cap member Chris Evans thinks would be a good face off for Captain America!

Anyone on Team Cap? Scarlet Witch would be trouble, wouldn’t she? She messes stuff up. She would be a problem, she’d be a problem… You know what, we’re lucky we have her, because without her, I mean, when you look at Team Iron Man, just even having Vision, even though we all know Paul Bettany, he’s still dangerous on the battlefield. But Vision is so wonderful, and Vision is so powerful but we’d be in trouble without Scarlet Witch, we really would. – Chris Evans

Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) Photo Credit: Zade Rosenthal © Marvel 2016

With friendships being tested and mega fight scenes, this is a bit of darker side to Captain America than we are accustomed to seeing. This experience had to be a bit different for Chris Evans, so we found out exactly how it felt to transition into a darker role.

It was nice because I think for the most part with, with Cap, the trickiest thing about the character is that he’s just a selfless guy. He’s not one of these brooding characters where you can kind of, as an audience member, connect to his conflict and struggle. He’s very selfless and I think to some degree it can feel vanilla, you know, I think it can feel boring. His goal has always been doing what other people need, and I think in this movie it’s the first time he kind of did what he wants. That’s a little bit of a departure for him, but it’s nice because it’s motivated by family. Cap doesn’t have – he woke up seventy years later and everyone he knows is dead, and you have Bucky, this one guy, this one person who is the remaining chapter of his life before. You’re pitting his current family with his old family and you can’t ask any man to choose that, you know, it’s like taking the friends you went to high school with compared to the friends you met in college. These are two worlds you got to try and somehow find a way to blend. For Cap, Bucky is his only remaining thing and it’s the first time he’s really kind of said ‘I’m choosing me. Over you.” and it’s tough for him, but I like that. It gives him a little bit of conflict because he can be a little boring. [LAUGHTER] – Chris Evans

Photo Credit: Coralie Seright – Lovebugs and Postcards

Speaking of the Cap and Bucky BFF situation, how is that going to affect the friendship of Falcon and Cap? I guess they do make triple friendship necklaces for these situations…… 😉

Yeah that’s been one of the big questions. Would he – are you- are you Team Bucky or Team Falcon? It’s tricky because in the comic books, one of these guys gets the shield. I don’t know what Marvel is going to do. What a strange thing to kind of have like….I don’t want to give them the shield anyway [LAUGHTER] but I guess I gotta, you know, which is fine. Listen, it’s not my job to pick. It’s a beautiful relationship, you know. Buck, like I said, Bucky is the friend from old, and Falcon is the friend from today, and they’re both great people, they’re both great characters, they’re both great actors. So, you know, [LAUGHS] I’m thankful it’s not my decision. Whoever, whatever happens, happens. – Chris Evans

This is the 6th time Chris Evans has sported the Captain America uniform, if you don’t count Loki as Captain America in Thor: The Dark World. I don’t know about you but, the clothes I love, lose their luster after wearing them time and time again. However, if I was sporting something like Black Widow and had powers, well that’s another story! How does Chris Evans feel about putting the Captain America uniform back on?

I feel good now, I didn’t in the beginning. In the beginning it was terrifying. Don’t all our brains just manage to go to the most negative thing possible, whenever there’s something in front of us? You just focus on what the worst possible outcome could be. So when I began the movie, it was like all the things that could go wrong and how this could be a mistake. Over the course of five or six movies now, it feels great. It really does, you know, the Russo Brothers and Marvel and everyone has made it such a wonderful environment. They’ve proven themselves time and time again to be great filmmakers and now, it’s like a point of pride, you know, when you see the suit, you’re excited to get the suit on and you’re very honored and humbled that you get to have some sort of a connection to it, because it is bigger than you, you know what I mean. Captain America will live on, there will be other Captain Americas, there will. It will live on a lot longer than I will. So it’s just nice to kind of have a little place in its lineage. – Chris Evans

Photo Credit; Coralie Seright – Lovebugs and Postcards

You may have heard the news about Disney threatening to boycott Georgia if they passed the Anti-Gay bill. I was so proud of Disney when they announced that, and it made me proud to support and promote their films. We wondered what Chris Evans thought about Disney’s decision.

It was great. I really I thought that was great. I didn’t even know, my younger brother is gay and he was the one sending me these text messages being like ‘good for Disney’ and it was just a nice thing to read about. I mean Disney spends huge – huge money in Georgia and I’m proud of them. I was so proud of Disney for standing up to that and making a statement and saying ‘listen, this is what we feel, this is what we believe in’ and it’s a hate bill that they were trying to pass. It’s one of those gray areas where you talk to these people, and they’re like ‘well we’re allowed to think what we want’. It’s one of those really tricky things where you need to be able to be an intelligent speaker. You need to be able to somehow articulate, ‘listen, I understand what you’re saying but’. I was proud of Disney, I really was, and I was glad it happened, I was glad it worked out. There are still some states that are messing up, but I was proud to be a part of the Disney family during that. – Chris Evans

Photo Credit; Coralie Seright – Lovebugs and Postcards

There was time for one last question as the #CaptainAmericaEvent Interview with Chris Evans came to a close. I had no idea that Tenderheart Bear was going to come up as Evans was asked who his favorite superhero was growing up…! Let me just say that I love me some Care Bears! 😀

Oh I didn’t have one. I had an older sister and I think anyone who has siblings…..it’s funny like that’s why I want when I have kids, I’d love for my oldest child to be a girl, because I think it softens up the boy, you know. We had a girl, me, and my younger brother. Whatever Carly wanted to do, we did. My Little Pony and Care Bear that was it. I’m like you, just being in Carly’s room was a big deal, you’re like don’t mess it up, don’t – just sit here whatever she gives us to play with, that’s what we’re playing with. And she’d give us the fuzzy My Little Ponies that had to give me willies, you know what I mean. We were like fine, okay. It was My Little Ponies, Cabbage Patch, Care Bears. I didn’t have a brother being like, GI Joe, you know, I was a lot softer than that. So comic books were not on my radar. I liked Star Wars, which was maybe the coolest thing about me, but that was my dad being like please, [LAUGHTER] please like Han Solo and I was like, but Tenderheart Bear! [LAUGHTER] It’s not untrue, It’s really sad. – Chris Evans

Photo Credit: Coralie Seright – Lovebugs and Postcards

Catch Captain America: Civil War in theaters May 6th and stay tuned for my next exclusive interview with Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen that is coming up on Friday, April 29th!

Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War” finds Steve Rogers leading the newly formed team of Avengers in
their continued efforts to safeguard humanity. But after another incident involving the Avengers results in
collateral damage, political pressure mounts to install a system of accountability, headed by a governing
body to oversee and direct the team. The new status quo fractures the Avengers, resulting in
two camps—one led by Steve Rogers and his desire for the Avengers to remain free to defend humanity
without government interference, and the other following Tony Stark’s surprising decision to support
government oversight and accountability. 

Order Captain America: Civil War Tickets today!

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