It’s been a little over a year since we said goodbye to Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark and Chris Evans as Steve Rogers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—and, like all good things, we’re all reluctant to get over it. Still, I cry thinking about my heroes and how, as of right now, we’re not going to have any new movies with Tony and Steve getting all up in each other’s faces. (That’s just for me. Stony 2020.)
But it seems as if fans aren’t the only ones who miss these actors being a part of the Marvel world. In an interview for Backstage about his Apple TV show Defending Jacob, Chris Evans opened up about adapting to the role of Captain America:
There was this enormous expectation that these people already had in their minds, this idea of who this character was, and you have to respect that. Audiences are part of what will make [these films] work, and I owe that group my understanding of what they see.
Evans then went on to talk about how he misses his time with Marvel but said he likes the freedom to do other things creatively:
I absolutely loved my time with Marvel; I already miss it, but there’s no denying that it is very exciting to just have complete freedom to pursue whatever my creative appetite wants.
But … does saying he already misses it mean that Evans is about to drop everything and head back into Marvel? No, absolutely not. Committing to Marvel is … well, a huge commitment. The franchise isn’t something to take on lightly, and after doing it for nearly ten years, it can be daunting and exhausting. So getting to do something different? I don’t really blame Chris Evans for loving that aspect of being “done” with Cap.
But it does show that we’re not alone in missing these characters. It isn’t even necessarily about Iron Man or Captain America. It’s about Tony and Steve and our longing for the world we had for the last decade. (Natasha still has a movie coming out with Black Widow, so that love is still there and will continue to be until we see what the future holds for her character.)
I think that, like many great franchises, there will come a time when we want to see characters like Steve Rogers onscreen again, and that time might also align with Chris Evans eventually being ready to come back to the role. Just look at Harrison Ford with Han Solo. No one thought he’d come back almost forty years later, and he did, so maybe there will be a time a little ways down the road when the multiverse exists onscreen and we get to see different versions of these characters played by the actors who originally brought them to life.
But right now, I’m just glad that Chris Evans is, seemingly, having a lot of fun playing different characters and getting to explore other parts of his craft—not to say that I wouldn’t instantly take Steve Rogers back. Trust me, I would.
(image: Marvel Entertainment)
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