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When you visit Chris Evans’ home in Los Angeles and you ring the buzzer at the front gate, the voice on the other end is friendly and familiar. It’s Captain America himself. 
 
He greets you warmly, invites you inside his light and airy home, and offers you a beer. Over the next hour, he talks expansively about his life and eclectic career, which ranges from early comedies like Not Another Teen Movie and The Perfect Score through comic-book hero roles in the Fantastic Four and Avengers franchises to last year’s Snowpiercer, an ambitious and dazzling allegorical thriller from Korean action auteur Bong Joon Ho. 
 
He props his feet up on the coffee table, wonders aloud whether he has holes in his socks and cracks jokes to loosen up further. No one from his posse pops in; no visitors interrupt. It’s just the two of us, lounging on comfy couches and sipping Pacificos. There are worse ways to spend a Tuesday afternoon. 
 
Usually when you interview a celebrity, especially if the interview takes place at the celebrity’s home, there is a buffer. There is a publicist, a manager, a cousin, a childhood friend — a Turtle or an E, inEntourage parlance. There is someone to keep an eye on the clock and an ear on the conversation and provide a sense of security for this Extremely Famous Person, to ensure that the perky stranger who just entered full of probing questions is not, in fact, a deranged fan — or, worse, a journalist with an agenda. 
 
This is not the case with Chris Evans. 
 
The openness Evans exudes off the top transfers to every topic we discuss. As celebrities go — ­especially ones who might establish defenses after having been interviewed countless times — Evans is surprisingly candid. He’s also thoughtful, boisterous and sometimes profane, with traces of his native New England accent surfacing as he gets worked up on occasion. 
 
You can see why Joe Russo, who co-directed Evans alongside his brother Anthony in the 2014 smash hit Captain ­America: The Winter Soldier, describes Evans as “the new (Clint) ­Eastwood.” He’s got a similarly strong screen presence, a ­combination of masculinity and mystery. He ­balances rugged, all-American looks with playful comic instincts. And he’s got the squint down cold. 
 
After chatting with the 33-year-old actor and checking in with several of his longtime friends and colleagues, many more contradictions emerge. 
Evans radiates confidence and charisma, yet he acknowledges that he’s “a bit of a control freak as an actor.” He’s had a tendency to overanalyze everything, and he works daily to quiet the mind and live in the now. 
 
He made his name playing the stoic and brave Captain America in the blockbuster Marvel franchise, yet he readily ’fesses up about his sensitive side: “I’m a big sap,” he says. “I cry at everything.” 
 
He’s spent much of his career appearing in ­effects-laden spectacles with origins in comic books and graphic novels, but when he finally found time to direct his own film — something he’d wanted to do for a while — he chose to make an intimate, ­walking-and-talking New York City romance ­(Before We Go). 
 
And while the handsome and muscular star theoretically could be partying it up in glamorous Los Angeles, he prefers to spend his downtime back home in Sudbury, Massachusetts, a town of about 18,000 just west of Boston, where his childhood buddies bust his chops about being a terrible actor and his sister’s kids — ages 6, 4 and 2 — simply think of him as Uncle Chris. 
 
Here’s something else you might not expect from such an established, A-list star: He’s a Disney World fanatic. “Chris would move into the castle at Disney World if he could,” says Joe Russo, who will direct Evans again with brother Anthony in next year’s Captain America: Civil War. “He grew up on it with his family, and I think it’s just something that reminds him of his youth.” 

When you visit Chris Evans’ home in Los Angeles and you ring the buzzer at the front gate, the voice on the other end is friendly and familiar. It’s Captain America himself.

He greets you warmly, invites you inside his light and airy home, and offers you a beer. Over the next hour, he talks expansively about his life and eclectic career, which ranges from early comedies like Not Another Teen Movie and The Perfect Score through comic-book hero roles in the Fantastic Four and Avengers franchises to last year’s Snowpiercer, an ambitious and dazzling allegorical thriller from Korean action auteur Bong Joon Ho.

He props his feet up on the coffee table, wonders aloud whether he has holes in his socks and cracks jokes to loosen up further. No one from his posse pops in; no visitors interrupt. It’s just the two of us, lounging on comfy couches and sipping Pacificos. There are worse ways to spend a Tuesday afternoon.

Usually when you interview a celebrity, especially if the interview takes place at the celebrity’s home, there is a buffer. There is a publicist, a manager, a cousin, a childhood friend — a Turtle or an E, inEntourage parlance. There is someone to keep an eye on the clock and an ear on the conversation and provide a sense of security for this Extremely Famous Person, to ensure that the perky stranger who just entered full of probing questions is not, in fact, a deranged fan — or, worse, a journalist with an agenda.

This is not the case with Chris Evans.

The openness Evans exudes off the top transfers to every topic we discuss. As celebrities go — ­especially ones who might establish defenses after having been interviewed countless times — Evans is surprisingly candid. He’s also thoughtful, boisterous and sometimes profane, with traces of his native New England accent surfacing as he gets worked up on occasion.

You can see why Joe Russo, who co-directed Evans alongside his brother Anthony in the 2014 smash hit Captain ­America: The Winter Soldier, describes Evans as “the new (Clint) ­Eastwood.” He’s got a similarly strong screen presence, a ­combination of masculinity and mystery. He ­balances rugged, all-American looks with playful comic instincts. And he’s got the squint down cold.

After chatting with the 33-year-old actor and checking in with several of his longtime friends and colleagues, many more contradictions emerge.
Evans radiates confidence and charisma, yet he acknowledges that he’s “a bit of a control freak as an actor.” He’s had a tendency to overanalyze everything, and he works daily to quiet the mind and live in the now.

He made his name playing the stoic and brave Captain America in the blockbuster Marvel franchise, yet he readily ’fesses up about his sensitive side: “I’m a big sap,” he says. “I cry at everything.”

He’s spent much of his career appearing in ­effects-laden spectacles with origins in comic books and graphic novels, but when he finally found time to direct his own film — something he’d wanted to do for a while — he chose to make an intimate, ­walking-and-talking New York City romance ­(Before We Go).

And while the handsome and muscular star theoretically could be partying it up in glamorous Los Angeles, he prefers to spend his downtime back home in Sudbury, Massachusetts, a town of about 18,000 just west of Boston, where his childhood buddies bust his chops about being a terrible actor and his sister’s kids — ages 6, 4 and 2 — simply think of him as Uncle Chris.

Here’s something else you might not expect from such an established, A-list star: He’s a Disney World fanatic. “Chris would move into the castle at Disney World if he could,” says Joe Russo, who will direct Evans again with brother Anthony in next year’s Captain America: Civil War. “He grew up on it with his family, and I think it’s just something that reminds him of his youth.”

Austin Hargrave/August

But first, there’s this summer’sAvengers: Age of Ultron, the much-anticipated sequel to 2012’s The Avengers and the latest installment in the blockbuster Marvel Cinematic Universe. This time, Captain America reteams with Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) to stop a high-tech villain who’s determined to end humanity. 
 
Evans knows how lucky he is to have such a plum, career-­defining role — the word grateful comes up several times in conversation — but it’s a part he almost didn’t take. Evans was reluctant to climb into the red-white-and-blue suit and strap on the shield when Marvel Studios came calling with the chance to star in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, the film that launched the franchise, because of the responsibility and commitment that came with it. Now, it’s difficult to imagine anyone else playing the part. 
 
“If the movie comes out and it’s a bigger animal than you had anticipated, you’re contractually obligated. If it was a one-pop movie, a one-pop shot, fine. Doesn’t go my way, I can stop,” he says. “If this movie changed my personal existence to a degree that I’m not necessarily comfortable with, you don’t have an opportunity to kind of formulate a game plan. You have to go back in to work on the next movie. And that was a little scary. I just felt like I was making a decision for a huge chapter of life that I wasn’t confident I wanted.” 
 
But Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige was patient and came back with the offer a few more times until Evans was finally ready to say yes. “By the first movie, I very, very quickly knew it was the right decision,” Evans says. “I’m like: ‘What an idiot!’ I was such an idiot. I just really almost let a really great opportunity slip through my fingers.” 
 
Acting itself, however, is something Evans knew he enjoyed from a young age as one of four children. His father is a dentist; his mother is now the artistic director of the community theater where he and his siblings grew up performing. (Younger brother Scott also is an actor whose work includes the soap opera One Life to Live.) 
 
After moving to New York and interning for a casting director, Evans made the leap to L.A. in 1999 to start auditioning for parts, which he described as “the most evil, sadistic practice.” 
 
“Going into a room — and you’re not doing this because it’s your hobby anymore; you’re not doing this because it’s fun on a Sunday with your friends; you’re doing this because you gotta eat, you gotta make rent — and if you don’t get it, there’s just so much at stake,” he says. “You start to maybe overanalyze, and the voice in your head gets an underserved platform. And before you know it, you can start doubting yourself.” 
 
What does Evans wish he could tell his younger self, now that he’s got many years and movies under his belt? “Shhhh,” he says, gently placing a finger to his lips. 
 
“And this is applicable to life too. Brains are just noisy. We analyze the past, we worry about the future. Our consciousness is very spread out, and as a result, it’s hard to stay present,” he says. “And if you can kind of stay present and know that that’s all that you have in life — life is just a series of nows — if you can kind of surrender to that, you can never lose.” 

 
 
But Johansson — who’s been a friend and colleague since the two worked together on the 2004 high school comedy The Perfect Score and who has a crucial role alongside him in Captain America: The Winter Soldier — remembers a young man with a much greater head on his shoulders. 
 
“At [21], when most up-and-coming actors would be hamming it up, trying to make an impression, Chris always knew how to hang back and underplay things,” she says in an email. “It’s a quality that keeps him fresh, unexpectedly so. That unusual quality, plus his perfect looks, make him stand out far from the average ‘leading man’ type.” 
 
Director Tim Story also saw something special in Evans when he cast him as Johnny Storm (aka the Human Torch) in Evans’ first big Marvel movie, 2005’s Fantastic Four. “Johnny Storm is this character that is full of energy and youth — he’s just this flashlight in the middle of everything,” Story says. “And Chris, that’s what he was. He just embodied this character. He was fun. When it comes to comedy, the guy is a freakin’ genius, and he just gave us everything we wanted.” 
 
The experience also prepared Evans to play Captain ­America because “it just opened your eyes to what those big movies entail in terms of six-month shooting schedules, sitting in your trailer for a long time, working on green screens, talking to nothing,” the actor says. “You really have to be silly at times — you really are truly playing pretend in your backyard.” 
 
By the time he returned as Captain America in The Avengers in 2012, “Chris stepped into a job that really is in a way kind of the backbone, the heart of all these franchises, and he’s a big-time actor,” says Clark Gregg, who plays Agent Coulson in the Marvel universe, a character who has a powerful childhood connection to the superhero. “It’s amazing to watch what he does with it. It’d be rough if they’d gotten anybody who didn’t have that kind of game.” 
 
Evans acknowledges that the challenge of playing Steve Rogers — the scrawny kid who becomes Captain America when he’s injected with Super Soldier serum during World War II — is that “he’s not funny; he doesn’t get to have a punch line. He puts himself last, and I think any man who is aggressively trying to prioritize the concerns of others before his own could potentially be interpreted as boring on-screen.” 
 
Joe Russo says he and Anthony were impressed by the layers Evans brought to the role in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He made their jobs easier because he was so physically prepared to perform so many of his own stunts. 
 
“Chris has a really rare blend of everyman and machismo — where he feels earnest and approachable but also could kick the [expletive] out of you if he had to,” Joe Russo says. “He can convey intensity and subtlety without saying a lot, but you believe the action component to everything he does.” 
 
Anthony Russo adds that while Evans is nothing like Captain America, “He recognizes how powerful the character can be for certain fans, especially younger fans. Even though he as an actor has a distance from the character, when he represents that character in public he’s very gracious and smooth about respecting how other people may sort of conflate him and the character.” 
 
But Evans shifted gears completely, with some ­advice from the Russos, when it came time to direct his own movie, Before We Go. Evans co-stars with Alice Eve as strangers who meet in Grand Central Terminal and spend the rest of the night exploring the city together. Although he admittedly knew nothing about directing, nothing about lenses or post-­production techniques, Evans says he checked his ego and relied on the folks around him who were more seasoned. 
 
“You gotta look a little foolish at times and be OK with it — and I was,” Evans ­explains. “And I learned a lot. And there’s still plenty more to learn. It was a very eye-­opening ­experience, but I’m very, very eager to do it again.” 
 
Cameron Bailey, artistic director of the Toronto International Film Festival where Before We Gopremiered in 2014, described screaming fans who turned out to see Captain America but stayed for a sweet romance. 
 
“I liked the ambition of the film and its humility,” Bailey says. “There’s a sensitivity to this film that may also be part of his broad appeal as an action hero. This may be a Hollywood hunk who’s watched [French director] Éric Rohmer.” 
 
Michelle Monaghan can vouch for Evans’ romantic appeal firsthand; she co-stars with him in this month’s Playing It Cool, a rare rom-com for him. “He is made to make women swoon and make other guys step up their game,” Monaghan says in an email. “Chris is a real dude but also comes with a very sincere and sensitive side.” 
 
Which brings us back to family, Evans’ first priority. While he lives and works in Los Angeles, Sudbury is his true home; his base. It’s where he goes between films; he even sleeps in his childhood bedroom. It’s where he hangs out with his crew of nine or 10 close, lifelong friends. And it’s where he finds the grounding and the quiet that he constantly seeks. 
 
“I’ve got no problem taking weeks, months, not doing anything. I go back to Boston a lot — a lot. I’ve gotta be around my family,” he says. “That’s life. That’s what this is all for, right?” 
 
Christy Lemire is a veteran film critic. Her work appears on her website,  Christylemire.com; on Rogerebert.com, as well as on the YouTube show What the Flick?! 
 
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Chris Evans is best known for his indelible portrayal of Captain America, but over the past decade, he’s played comic-book characters in a variety of genres. Here’s a look at how he’s gone from page to screen and from the past to the future. 
 
 Fantastic Four (2005): Evans’ first foray into comic-book territory was in this Marvel ensemble as the flirty, wisecracking Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch, an astronaut who gains the ability to catch fire after radiation exposure. 
 
 Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007): Evans reprised the role in this sequel in which the Human Torch, Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman and The Thing fight new diabolical foes. 
 
 The Losers (2010): Evans was once again part of a team in this action comedy based on the Vertigo graphic novels about a group of mercenaries who seek revenge when the CIA strands them in the field. He played Jensen, a spiky-haired, fast-talking hacker. 
 
 Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010): Based on the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, this comedy stars Michael Cera as a musician who must kill all the evil ex-boyfriends of the woman he loves. Evans played Ex No. 2, Lucas Lee, a skateboarder-turned-actor with incredible strength. 
 
 Captain America: The First Avenger (2011): Evans first played Steve Rogers in this blockbuster, in which Rogers, a scrawny guy rejected by the military during World War II, gets injected with a serum that turns him into a Super Soldier and a symbol of national hope. 
 
 The Avengers (2012): Now functioning in the present day after being frozen in sleep the past 70 years, Captain America joins Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor, Black Widow and Hawkeye to stop an army of aliens from enslaving humanity. 
 
 Snowpiercer (2013): Based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige, this futuristic thriller takes place on a train circling the iced-over globe. Evans stars as Curtis, who leads the have-nots at the back of the train in revolution. 
 
 Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014): Still struggling to assimilate to modern life and his role as a superhero in it, Captain America teams up with the assassin Black Widow to uncover a shadowy enemy from within their own organization. 
 
 Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015): Captain America reteams with the rest of the Avengers this summer to defeat Ultron, a high-tech enemy determined to eradicate humans from Earth. 
 
 Captain America: Civil War (2016): Following the events of Age of Ultron, the U.S. government tries to enact legislation regulating superhero activity. This creates a rift between Captain America and Iron Man, prompting their fellow Avengers to choose sides.