Searching his soul

“I wouldn’t have done it,” Evans said,discussing his therapy experience,“had I not agreed to do Captain America and gone into panic mode.”

It may be difficult to summon up sympathy for Evans,a Massachusetts-born dude,the star of films like Cellular,Fantastic Four and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,and who has had to navigate Hollywood with little more than his rugged good looks,piercing blue eyes and billowing forearms that threatened to topple the lunch table.

“The question is: What’s the endgame?” Evans said in a characteristic moment of self-analysis. “What’s the goal? If the goal is to be a giant movie star,then yeah,this is a great way to achieve that. But that’s not necessarily what I’m trying to achieve.”

During a European junket for a Fantastic Four movie,he said,he became so nervous that he fled a room full of reporters. “No one was even speaking to me,” he said,“and in a matter of 60 seconds,I went from being fine to full meltdown,just stood up and walked offstage.”

When Marvel Studios began casting Captain America in late 2009,it did not initially consider Evans for the title character,a virtuous World War II hero who eventually finds himself in the present day. Evans said he resisted a test audition,for which he would have had to sign a pre-emptive deal for as many as nine Marvel movies,including three Captain America films and three films for The Avengers,about the super group that includes Iron Man,Thor and the Hulk. When Marvel reduced the contract to at most six movies and “sweetened the pot a little bit,” Evans said no again.

He said his opposition stemmed from a fear of commitment and also to signing away,potentially,a decade of his life. “In a few years what if I don’t want to act anymore?” he said. “What if I just want to—I don’t know—do something else? The reason I kept saying no is because I was scared. Maybe this is exactly what I had to do. Maybe this is exactly what I had to face”

Johnston,who had directed Jurassic Park III and Jumanji said Evans’s moral quandary showed he was perfectly suited to play Captain America and his alter ego,Steve Rogers.

“Steve Rogers is a guy who,at the heart of it,has a very simple mission,” Johnston said. “He just wants to serve his country and do the right thing. And Chris comes off as basically a really good human being. He can wear his heart on his sleeve when he needs to.”

After principal filming for Captain America wrapped in London in December,Evans took a short break. He shot some additional footage in New York in April and is spending his summer in Albuquerque making The Avengers.

From his therapy sessions Evans learned that “it is really good just to talk about what you’re struggling with,” he said. “It’s not like I had any massive breakthrough,but for some reason this feels more manageable.”

But have no illusions that anything other than Captain America—and a desire not to bungle the handoff to The Avengers—will be on Evans’s mind for the next several weeks. If Captain America is a dud,he will be disappointed. And if it succeeds,the next 10 years of his career might be spoken for,and that could be the bigger problem.

“It’s nice job security,but it doesn’t give a whole lot of freedom,” he said. “That’s the compromise,and it’s worth it. These are good problems to be having. It’s not like,poor me,I’m working in the coal mines.”

Dave Itzkoff NYT