Chris Evans Didn't Want to Join the MCU but Robert Downey Jr. Convinced Him
The one and only Captain America was pretty adamant about rejecting Marvel’s offer until Iron Man stepped up and persuaded him to take the gig.
The main cast of Avengers is so iconic it’s virtually impossible to imagine anyone else playing these roles. There can’t be a different Captain America than Chris Evans, and Robert Downey Jr. is definitely the only person we see as Iron Man.
But curiously, if not for the latter’s timely intervention, the former wouldn’t have been there at all!
Apparently, the iconic Captain America actor didn’t want to join the MCU at all. Chris Evans had one too many concerns about his future after becoming part of Marvel, and the responsibility was weighing him down too much.
So he…rejected the offer. It was not just any offer, too: a nine-movie Marvel contract with no audition required!
“Getting the offer felt, to me, like the epitome of temptation. The ultimate job offer, on the biggest scale. I’m supposed to say no to this thing. It felt like the right thing to do. You see the pictures, and you see the costumes, and it’s cool. But I’d now woken up the day after saying no and felt good, twice,” Evans explained to Vanity Fair.
However, this answer did not suffice as Marvel wanted Chris Evans and only him for the part. This is where Robert Downey Jr. came into play: he called his future co-star and convinced him that joining the MCU would only broaden his horizons, not narrow them. At the same time, Marvel reduced the commitment from nine to six movies.
After speaking to Downey Jr., Evans reconsidered and accepted the deal; however, he never found peace in the next few years.
The actor was held tight in his horror’s grasp, fearing he’d signed his career a death sentence with the six-movie contract with Marvel. It was only years later when Evans realized his new movies were good that he finally relaxed.
Today, Evans is no longer portraying Captain America, and it turned out that Robert Downey Jr. was right: working for Marvel did wonders for the actor’s career. After being launched into international stardom as part of the MCU, Evans received many offers way larger than he had before — and his track record grows stronger by the year.
Source: Vanity Fair