Captain America stud-meister Chris Evans is hanging up his shield for good as he is considering a retirement from acting.
But don't mention the word to him.
He discussed the semantics of retiring with The Hollywood Reporter.
"I never said the word 'retire.' It's a really obnoxious notion for an actor to say they're going to retire — it's not something you retire from."
After a ten-year stint as the superhero, Avengers: Endgame will be his last as the title loosely suggests. The 37-year-old is looking forward to the next chapter of his career as a director, but he's not in a rush with the transition.
"Momentum is a real fallacy, in my opinion. But it has a really strong hold on a lot of actors' mentalities. You really believe that while the ball's rolling, you gotta keep it rolling."
He disagrees about striking while the iron is hot.
"I could be wrong, but to me — I just don't believe in that. I don't think that's real."
The actor reflected on his thoughts when he received the call from the studios to play Captain America. He wasn't the first choice. Marvel Studios put him on the back-burner during the initial stages of casting, according to director Kevin Feige.
Evans said:
"Getting the [Captain America] 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."
His struggle to interpret a character who had "no real darkness to him" was one of the reasons for being evasive.
But the absence of a dark history is what made his character appealing for fans.
Evans passed on a nine-film deal with Marvel only to turn them down again after a whittled-down six-picture contract proposal. After Marvel persisted and co-star Robert Downey Jr. encouraged him, Evans relented.
In addition to considering him being one of the funniest guys on the set, Downey Jr. holds Evans in high regard for his contribution to the MCU.
"[Evans'] suspension of his own disbelief, regardless of whatever doubts he had, is the reason all these other worlds are able to be built."
"Starting with Avengers, and then Guardians, and Black Panther. People love to say — and I'll eat it up — that I'm kind of the progenitor of this whole universe. But if you want to talk about it in terms of team building, and you want to talk about it as the most successful creative relay race in the history of cinema, he was the critical leg."
When the inevitable talking point about the secretive plot for Avengers: Endgame, he remained tight-lipped, as everyone involved with the production is bound by a strict nondisclosure agreement.
With so much secrecy surrounding Endgame, he was shocked at what little the trailer revealed so far.
But he did get emotional when thinking about the significance of his character's relevance in 2019.
"This one's really good. I choked up like three times."
Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Whatever his definition of retiring is, his fans don't want that to happen.
Evans did express interest in doing a musical one day.
Maybe "retirement" is just a euphemism for step-ball-changing into another facet of the industry, whatever that may be. But we'll all be on board long after we've grieved over his final Captain America appearance.
See you in theaters on April 26 for Avengers: Endgame!
