Chris Evans Reveals His Soft Spot For Romance Movies (EXCLUSIVE)
Chris Evans has played pretty much every role under the sun and has spent a better part of the last four years bring Captain America to life. So it's no surprise that Evans is feeling ready to hang up his shield and try something new -- directing.
"Before We Go" marks his directorial debut and, since he also stars in the film, gives us hope that he isn't ready to stop acting all together.
Evans sat down with us to chat all about his directing hopes, what it's like to wear a lot of hats while making a movie, and the scene that he felt the most pressure to nail.
Moviefone: You've been talking about wanting to direct for a while now. What was it about this movie that made you chose it as your directorial debut?
Chris Evans: Well, to be very candid, it was a combination of factors. It certainly was a script that I enjoyed, but it also was a script that had producers that were willing to give me a chance. You can want to direct all day long, but it's a matter of who's going to let you have the opportunity. So with this script, I certainly was passionate about the story, but, wonderfully, it had some producers who were willing to take a gamble.
This movie does something that not a lot of movies do these days, and that's focusing on just two people talking and getting to know their story. Was there ever a time where you got too caught up in directing when you were supposed to be focusing on the acting?
Yeah. One of the things I like about the story is that you have these long scenes. A lot of times in films, you've got things that last maybe five pages -- in theater you've got things that last 30-40 pages, and some of these scenes are some very long walk and talks. The problem is, if you're in the scene and you do giant walk and talks – you know, seven or eight pages of dialogue – you don't always have the opportunity to run back to the monitor and watch the tape back as a director. So you are kind of going off of gut. You're kind of saying to your producers: 'Was that okay? Do we need to go again?' It can be tricky, certainly there were times in the editing room where you watch the footage and you say, 'Man, I wish I would've been able to sit in the chair and watch these scenes as they were happening.' So, it was a challenge, but I learned a lot.
What would be your dream movie or genre to direct?
I've always liked big, sweeping epics. I like "Legends of the Fall." I like "Braveheart," but it's a little action-y. These big movies that kind of have these grand plots, that span long lengths of time, and that are emotionally charged. I like romance movies.
Was there one scene in particular in the movie you had the hardest time approaching as a director?
Grand Central Station. The first two days of filming were at Grand Central. We had to film the opening of the movie and the end of the movie. It was tricky because it was my first day directing. It was also tricky because it was the most expensive location we had. We can't come back here, if we don't make our day, we're in trouble. We had a very limited amount of time. And it's tricky because it's the beginning and the end of the film, this isn't kind of the middle or the meat of the movie, this is how we open and how we close. So it was just a lot of pressure in those scenes.