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Chris Evans Chris is best recognized for his role as the jock "Jack Wyler" in the 2001movie "Not Another Teen Movie." Chris Evans followed with a role in the moderately successful comedy The Perfect Score before truly coming into his own before the cameras. Born in Sudbury, MA, Evans spent the majority of his childhood in Boston before his love of acting brought him to New York City the summer after his junior year of high school. It was during this time that the aspiring actor alternated between an internship at a casting office and summer acting cles. With a little help from a contact he made that summer, Evans began auditioning shortly after graduating from high school. A supporting role in the short-lived television series Opposite gave the up-and-comer his first break on the small screen, and a supporting role in the feature The Newcomers preceded an appearance in the popular prime-time drama Boston Public. At this point it appeared as if everything was going smoothly for Evans, but his career would soon shift gears and kick into overdrive thanks to a featured role in the teen comedy parody Not Another Teen Movie. Cast as the popular jock who transforms an ugly duckling into a popular princess, Evans ran with the role and proved a more than capable comic talent. If audiences had wondered where Evans had disappeared to in the following few years, their curiosities were answered when the young actor took a leading role in the moderately successful comedy The Perfect Score. Though to many it may have seemed that Evans career had stalled somewhat, a role as an unsuspecting young man who receives a desperate phone call from a kidnapping victim in the 2004 thriller Cellular offered some relief from the seeming drought of choice roles. A subsequent role in the same year's The Orphan King served as a strong follow-up before hearty roles in such 2005 releases as Fierce People and The Fantastic Four found him leaning ever closer to becoming a true marquee draw. Chris Evans was born on June 13, 1981, in Machusetts. More fun stuff about Chris Evans Birth name: Christopher Robert Evans Nickname: Cevans Height 6' 0½" (1.84 m) Son of a dentist and a dancer. In high school, he decided he wanted to pursue acting, and went to New York the summer after his junior year where he interned at a casting office and took a summer acting program. An agent he met that summer later helped him get his start after he finished high school. He had bit parts on various TV dramas like "Boston Public" before scoring major feature film roles. Read for a role in Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown" but lost out to Orlando Bloom He has a dog named East, that is half American bulldog and half English bulldog He has two sisters and a younger brother. Is a vegetarian Is of Irish and Italian descent. Chris Evans' 'Cellular' Chris Evans on Fantastic Four Usually when a star has a major highly anticipated project coming out, they won’t say much about it while promoting their previous movie. I didn’t expect to get so much Fantastic Four material out of Chris Evans while talking to him for Cellular. I would’ve been happy with a quote or two. But he was totally game to talk about everything. Of course, I will bring you the Cellular interview, but for the sake of news, here’s some stuff about The Fantastic Four to whet your appetites. There will be more in the full Cellular interview. With Tim Story doing a superhero movie, where does comedy come in? It’s all over the place. A lot of the stuff I have to do is pretty funny, which is good. Johnny [Storm] is kind of a comic relief. But a lot of the stuff that [Michael] Chiklis has to do is good too, not only as Ben Grimm, but as The Thing. The guy really has great comic beats and Chiklis just nails them all the time. Has Story talked about his action plans? Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of storyboards. They actually showed me a little laptop monitor, a Mac laptop with a 10 second sample of what the fire is going to look like. It just looks so cool. So you’re confident a comedy director can do the action? I think so. It seems like this guy, Tim Story, I think he’s just every studio’s dream. The guy is like a cool, young director who just seems to have a connection with pop culture, with what is hip, with what’s cool, with what’s in. I think the guy has not only a firm understanding of youth, but he’s wildly intelligent when he wants to be. He looks like a guy who’s just smart as shit. He probably was a genius in high school and he’s just got such a great demeanor. He’s casual, he’s easy to work with, he’s easy to direct. He’s just great. Have you done anything for the inevitable toy line? You do those computer scannings where you go and make these weird faces. Do this and it scans your face and it pops on the computer screen and it’s just your face. They’re like, “Yeah, this is for the toy” and you make these weird positions and they scan your body in. Will it have kung fu grip? Well, I don't know. I better get kung fu grip. I’ll be pissed if I don’t have some cool kung fu grip. What other merchandising are you doing? Well, we’re going to do the Burger King thing. We’re going to do the cups and all that. We’ve got a video game. I got to play the video game. The Playstation guy brought the video game up and we played. It’s a very preliminary, only a couple levels, a lot of bugs in the game but we got to see that. It’s all new terrain for me. I don’t even know to what extent it goes. What was your training routine for the film? They offered us a trainer and I said yes, please. It’s nice having an opportunity to train with a trainer. I’ve had a bunch of wire harness fittings where they put me in this really comfortable harness that doesn’t rip out your leg hairs at all. [Sarcastic] And they fly you around and it’s just trying to practice taking off and it’s just getting used [to it]. It’s a muscle memory with your balance and things like that. So it’s not too strenuous. I’m no working in the coal mines or anything. It’s pretty manageable. Chris Evans' Cellular Interview I spoke to Chris Evans at the very end of his press rounds for Cellular, but it wasn’t the long day that did him in. It was the thought of the next day’s television interviews. Evans admitted he feels self conscious on camera, saying that the knowledge of people watching makes him overthink his comments. But he also knows that his next press tour will be even bigger, so this is just practice. In Cellular, Evans plays a regular guy who receives a random call on his cell phone from a kidnapped woman. Trying to help her, he runs around the city all day trying to find her and her family. Evans’ only previous action experience was the teen heist movie The Perfect Score, unless you count football in Not Another Teen Movie. But running around and stunt driving are only the beginning for the future Fantastic Four star. Do you believe cell phones cause cancer? I don't know. I think a lot of things cause cancer. Cell phones are on the list. I’m sure there are other things that are much more prominent in our day to day life. I’m sure there are much more things higher on the list that are much more prominent in our daily life than cell phones. Do you use a cell phone a lot? There’s nothing I love more than just turning off my cell phone and letting it alone and just not touching it for a day. Then of course it’s a nightmare when you turn it on and you have 20 messages, people screaming at you. I hate cell phones. I hate being so connected. You ever lose your cell phone and it’s just like a nightmare? The world is ending because you lost it. “I had everything in there!” I hate being so dependent on it but it’s inevitable. Was it important to you that your character never kill anyone? Yeah, I don't think he would ever even dream of killing anyone. Even bad guys? Yeah, I don't think he’s got it in him to kill. I don't think he’s pushed that far. What did you think of the beach scene with all the hot girls? Where are these beaches? Where are these beaches where everyone’s just walking around in bikinis and tan and beautiful. Was that distracting? No, not really. You’ve got about 50 things going on in your head anyway. That’s the last thing you're trying to think about. I’ve got to say, in the beach scene, I was jealous of you and your pumped up body. You know what you saw though? You saw the waist up. From the waist up is okay. These things [legs] are pool cue. I walk around on chopsticks. I have the skinniest f*cking legs in the world. We should switch. I have big legs. I’m jealous of people like you who just have huge calves. I can’t get my legs big. I try so hard. My legs are just these little chicken legs. Do you do the squats and work them out? Yeah. I mean, they gave us a trainer. They put us with a trainer up in Vancouver and I said right away, I said, “Look, my upper body’s okay. I think it’ll be allright, but I’ve got chopsticks down here, what can we do?” She goes, “All right, we’ll work on ‘em” and we’ve been workin’ on ‘em but I don’t see an improvement. Did you get to drive in any of the chase scenes? No. They teased me. They put me in this week long stunt driving cl before I went up to shoot. And I got to do 180s, you're spinning and you’re learning everything. And then on the day, they just said, “Yeah, insurance said no. insurance doesn’t feel safe at all, so the stuntman will be doing all of this.” I got to do a few things, but they held my hand through it. It was preschool. What did they let you do? They had a couple cool scenes where I’m trying to follow the kidnappers after they’ve kidnapped her son, and I’m trying to get around the bus and then I zip into oncoming traffic. They had one shot where they just moved all the traffic and I just drove straight down through it, kind of gently weaving back and forth, and all the cars just kinda skidded around me. I was never in any real danger, but then you see it on playback and it looks amazing. It looks like cars are just barely missing me. It’s all depth perception trickery. I can’t believe they’d let even you do that? I know. I was shocked. I was psyched. Believe me, I was ecstatic when they said, “All right, you’re going to do this one.” I thought it would be simpler stuff like turn fast? Well, turns fast, they want those big peel out turns where you turn and it’s a peel out and go, which are actually surprisingly hard. You’d be shocked. I did that stunt driving course and you spend one whole day just doing power turns that are actually really difficult. Isn’t that the usual reluctant hero? The difference is some of these guys have the br. You look at Bruce Willis in Die Hard. He was caught in the wrong place but he was a cop and he had an attitude and he’s cracking jokes. You look at some of these heroes and these guys are wrong place wrong time, but he’s kind of the right guy for the situation. Wrong place wrong time, but if I want someone in there, I’d want Bruce Willis in there. This is wrong place wrong time and the wrong guy. I don’t want this guy doing it. This is some surfer, apathetic punk. What was the audition process for Fantastic Four? Were you aware of your competition? I try not to know. I think if I know who I’m competing against, I’ll alter my performance based on, “Well, if they like him, I wonder what they like about him and I wonder if I should be more like him.” You just try and you know what? Do what I do and hope that’s enough. It was the same audition process as any other film. No different. You go in, you get a couple callbacks and you hope they go well. It was a good group effort. I had a lot of help with my agent and my manager making the right phone calls and [Cellular director] David Ellis making calls to people at 20th Century for me. It was a nice group effort and everyone came together. Would you be interested in going after Superman since it’s out there? I don't know if I’ll do anymore. I don't know if I can be Johnny Storm and Superman. That’s kind of overkill. I don't think I’d want to do any more superhero stuff after this. It’s a nice thought, but Johnny Storms’ good enough for me. How many Fantastic Fours are you signed for? Three. That’s enough. That’s more than enough. How are you dealing with all the attention you’re getting for this? It’s funny. I just don’t feel it yet. I come to these things and I guess I feel a little bit, but I walk outside and I’ve been recognized probably five times in my entire life. Anonymity has not left me. It’s not like oh, the press, oh the camera, oh the paparazzi. What were you recognized for those five times? Maybe Not Another Teen Movie. What would you like to do in the future? If I had my choice, I would try and have like a Chris Cooper/Billy Crudup career. Do good work, be respected in the industry, be respected by the people who make the decisions and make good work and maintain your anonymity. I think the majority of the country don’t know who Chris Cooper is and the guy is genius. He can walk down the street and not be bothered about getting his personal life plastered everywhere. So ideally, I like doing big films but it’s really nice to do small films where you have a small budget, you wake up and everyone’s there because they’re pionate about it and it is a little stressful and you are trying to get through 15 pages in a day and you don’t have permits. “Two takes, too bad, we gotta go.” But you come home and you say, “I made a movie today. I made a movie today.” And it feels really good. You really feel like you were a part of something fun. Not to discredit the big stuff, but it has a different vibe. Cooper never played a superhero. I know, that’s what everyone says. This is not the way to go about taking that career. It’s tough because how do you p up an opportunity like this and how do you try to maintain your privacy. I don't know. It’s going to be a bumpy road but I’m just trying to stay level headed and keep good people around me. I just don’t want things to go to my head. Why did you want that opportunity? Because I think it’s every little kid’s dream to be a superhero. Come on. Are you telling me you didn’t wrap a towel around your neck and run around? Superhero, come on! You can’t p that up. Have you been working on action or mostly dialogue? Mostly dialogue. Is there any stunt you’re dreading? I’m not dreading anything. I think the only thing that’s going to be difficult is all the harness work. I’m going to be in a harness a lot of the time for a lot of flying stuff, so I bet that’s going to be pretty uncomfortable. Is Michael Chiklis even on the set, or is he just doing the voice? No, no, no. They’re not going to do computer stuff with The Thing. Did you see Hellboy? It’s that type of [costume]. I haven’t even seen it yet. I am so excited to see it. So he’s going to have the full body thing and I’ve heard it looks awesome. I was talking to the director’s istant the other day. He said you look at it and it looks real. You get close, you’ll be like, “It looks like rock.” I can’t wait to see it. I’m so psyched. Will you be poking it? Well, I’m going to be as accommodating [as possible]. I’m going to do whatever he tells me to do. I can’t even imagine being in that outfit for an entire day, so I think everyone’s just going to be really sensitive to his needs. Anything Chiklis wants, if he wants us to talk to him and keep him occupied, we’ll talk to him. If he wants us to leave him the hell alone, we’re going to leave him the hell alone. I think he has it hard. It’s not going to be easy and I think we’re all going to be ready to ist. How is your costume? The beauty is the Fantastic Four uniform is this form fitting blue outfit. So they make these really cool, blue almost like wetsuits, but since we all don’t have the perfect bodies for these wetsuits, they gave us muscle suits. These little suits that you put on first that have rubber muscles that are actually form fitted to our bodies. They do these body casts and then they add muscle in certain places where it’s needed. So you put on this muscle suit and then you put on this blue uniform and you just walk around like you’re chiseled out of stone, so it’s great. I’m happy. But you guys are in phenomenal shape compared to the rest of us. Actually, you know what? I don't think they gave Alba a muscle suit. But they made me wear one which is kind of upsetting, a little disappointing, but Alba does not have the muscle suit. Ioan and I do. Will you continue playing action heroes? No, I don't think so. I think I’ll have had about my fill after the Fantastic Four run. I’m not against action movies as a whole but I don’t want to get stuck in that little category of being an action guy. I personally like drama. Why did you want to become an actor? Because I suck at everything else. No, I’m kidding. I started acting because my older sister acted. You do what your older sister does. She was sixth grade, I was like fourth grade and she did plays and got flowers and clapping. “Well, I want flowers and clapping.” So I started doing plays and it was great and it was fun. The more plays I did, the more I was like I actually really like this. I’d read books on it. I wanted to draw. I wanted to be an artist my whole life and I thought that was the only real form of expression. The more I acted, the more I was like this actually can go deep. It can go as deep as you want really. And I went to New York during high school and lived there for one of my summers in high school years where I interned in a casting office, just to see if it was a field I’d want to spend the rest of my life in. And I kind of got the bug. My job was to set up actors for auditions. And all day I’d just see actors going into auditions for little parts on sitcoms. They were just dying to get in that room and I said, “I think this is what I want to do.” And it’s tough because you do trade in a lot of your privacy and anonymity. It’s a difficult thing. It’s something I think every actor struggles with, trying to keep that in check. Chris Evans Talks About "The Perfect Score" When last we saw actor Chris Evans on the big screen, he was helping to sendup teen movies as one of the stars of "Not Another Teen Movie." With his role as Kyle in "The Perfect Score," Evans becomes a part of the genre he poked fun at in that film. As aspiring architect Kyle, Evans plays the ringleader of a group of students who take a stand against allowing the results of one test to determine their future. According to director Brian Robbins ("Varsity Blues"), finding the right actor to play the role of the criminal mastermind was their greatest casting challenge. Robbins says his choice of Chris Evans had to do with his personality, and not his looks. "Chris really comes across as an all-around nice guy, with peers who look up to him. He was perfect for the role, projecting a take-charge attitude, but still showing a sensitivity," observes Robbins. INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS EVANS ('Kyle'): So what did you get on the SATs? Have you ever cheated on a test? Did you get caught? And look where it got you. Every character in this movie has a unique trait that sets them apart. In real life, what would you say is yours? Do you think in real life, people usually have one defining trait? Is it tough to make a teen movie after making fun of them so much in “Not Another Teen Movie?” Will there be another “Another Teen Movie?” What’s Brian Robbins like as a director? What kind of conversations did you have about the film’s values and what it would say to teens? So they’ll be no worries about copycats? How was working with Matthew Lillard? Was it tough to keep a straight face? Did you and Erika Christensen approach acting in a different way? In the scene in the coffee house, it seems like you and Scarlett Johansson’s character are going to get together. Was there another plot line that didn’t make it into the movie? Can you remember anything funny that happened on the set and cracked everyone up? That sounds pretty simple. And after "The Perfect Score," you've been pretty busy. What was it like working on "Cellular?" You also have “The Orphan King” coming up. Can you talk a little bit about that movie? Interview with Mia Kirshner & Chris Evans from "Not Another Teen Movie" Did you grow up watching teen movies? Chris: I really haven't seen a lot of the 80s movies, to be honest. I've seen a few, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," bits and pieces of "The Breakfast Club." But not "Pretty in Pink" and "Sixteen Candles," for the most part I haven't seen a lot of those 80s films. I've seen a lot of the 90s ones. I'm not going to lie, I probably saw a lot of them in the theatre. It's okay - I was young when they came out, 15 or 16, so I was in the right demographics - so it was okay. Did you study "Cruel Intentions?" Was this a chance to spoof the straight teen roles you've played? For the leads? What's it like to be the "pretty boy?" Was that "dessert" scene uncomfortable? Is there a special person who put the whipped cream on you? Did you have anything on? How many takes of the kissing scene did you have to do to get the slobber just right? But was it real slobber? Did you study the clic spoofs such as " Gun?" Did you study "Scary Movie?" Were there any uncomfortable scenes in this film that you weren't sure about doing? Is this your first feature? What did you think when you got it? You broke through with "Exotica." Are you happy with the turns your career is taking? Can you talk about "24?" That was the first hour of the series and it was a powerful scene.
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