Chris Evans interview: the Marvel star on politics, break-ups, and saying goodbye to Captain America

Chris Evans must be the only man in Hollywood to win his own superhero franchise then pray for it to fail. Back in 2010, the then-28-year-old actor signed a contract with Marvel Studios to appear in half a dozen films – both solo outings and ensemble jobs – as Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, the Avengers’ flaxen-quiffed moral compass.

“One of my biggest fears was that the movies were going to be good,” he says, stroking a beard so keenly edged it might have been trimmed with a laser alignment tool. “Because if things worked out, I’d have to do all six of them. And at the time, that was the most terrifying aspect of it. That it was going to be so dominating, all-encompassing.”

What set Evans apart from his Avengers cohorts – and almost every other actor on the planet, come to that – was that he’d already made one circuit of the comic-book track. He’d played Johnny Storm, the combustible...