Chris joined fellow Bostonians John Krasinski and Rachel Dratch, along with Boston Red Sox legend David Ortiz for the newest Hyundai Sonata commercial for the Super Bowl.
Apple announced today that Chris’ project Defending Jacob will premiere April 24th on Apple TV+ with the first three episodes, then a new episode will premiere each Friday until the episode 8 finale. I’ve added the first two production photos released today into the gallery.
Gallery Link:
• Television Productions > 2020 | Defending Jacob
The actor’s new project, A Starting Point, aims to give all Americans the TL;DR on WTF is going on in politics. It’s harder than punching Nazis on the big screen.
It’s a languid October afternoon in Los Angeles, sunny and clear.Chris Evans, back home after a grueling production schedule, relaxes into his couch, feet propped up on the coffee table. Over the past year and a half, the actor has tried on one identity after another: the shaggy-haired Israeli spy, the clean-shaven playboy, and, in his Broadway debut, the Manhattan beat cop with a Burt Reynolds ’stache. Now, though, he just looks like Chris Evans—trim beard, monster biceps, angelic complexion. So it’s a surprise when he brings up the nightmares. “I sleep, like, an hour a night,” he says. “I’m in a panic.”
The panic began, as panics so often do these days, in Washington, DC. Early last February, Evans visited the capital to pitch lawmakers on a new civic engagement project. He arrived just hours before Donald Trump would deliver his second State of the Union address, in which he called on Congress to “bridge old divisions” and “reject the politics of revenge, resistance, and retribution.” (Earlier, at a private luncheon, Trump referred to Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, as a “nasty son of a bitch.”) Evans is no fan of the president, whom he has publicly called a “moron,” a “dunce,” and a “meatball.” But bridging divisions? Putting an end to the American body politic’s clammy night sweats? These were goals he could get behind.
Evans’ pitch went like this: He would build an online platform organized into tidy sections—immigration, health care, education, the economy—each with a series of questions of the kind most Americans can’t succinctly answer themselves. What, exactly, is a tariff? What’s the difference between Medicare and Medicaid? Evans would invite politicians to answer the questions in minute-long videos. He’d conduct the interviews himself, but always from behind the camera. The site would be a place to hear both sides of an issue, to get the TL;DR on WTF was happening in American politics. He called it A Starting Point—a name that sometimes rang with enthusiasm and sometimes sounded like an apology.
Evans doesn’t have much in the way of political capital, but he does have a reputation, perhaps unearned, for patriotism. Since 2011 he has appeared in no fewer than 10 Marvel movies as Captain America, the Nazi-slaying, homeland-defending superhero wrapped in bipartisan red, white, and blue. It’s hard to imagine a better time to cash in on the character’s symbolism. Partisan animosity is at an all-time high; a recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic found that 35 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of Democrats would oppose their child marrying someone from the other party. (In 1960, only 4 percent of respondents felt this way.) At the same time, there’s a real crisis of faith in the country’s leaders. According to the Pew Research Center, 81 percent of Americans believe that members of Congress behave unethically at least some of the time. In Pew’s estimation, that makes them even less trusted than journalists and tech CEOs.
Head over to Wired Magazine to read the full interview and listen to the audio interview as well!
I will also have scans added into the gallery once I get my hands on the magazine.
Gallery Link:
• Photoshoots > Outtakes > Session 100
I’ve just updated the events in the gallery dating back to last summer. I’m still missing a couple events from last year, but everything else has been added, including Chris’ appearance yesterday at the 7th Annual Gold Meets Golden party.
Gallery Links:
• Events > 2019 > Jun 28 | ACE Comic Con Seattle
• Events > 2019 > Sep 7 | Toronto International Film Festival – AT&T ON LOCATION – Day 2
• Events > 2019 > Sep 7 | Toronto International Film Festival – “Knives Out” Premiere
• Events > 2019 > Sep 7 | Toronto International Film Festival – Entertainment Weekly’s Must List Party
• Events > 2019 > Sep 7 | Toronto International Film Festival – The Hollywood Foreign Press Association And The Hollywood Reporter Party
• Events > 2019 > Oct 23 | “Sell By” – NewFest Film Festival Opening Night
• Events > 2019 > Nov 9 | WIRED25 Summit 2019 – Day 2
• Events > 2019 > Nov 14 | “Knives Out” Los Angeles Premiere
• Events > 2020 > Jan 4 | 7th Annual Gold Meets Golden
Introducing our Best Performances 2020 portfolio.
The movies of 2019 were unusually reflective, almost melancholic. When the neon lights go on near the end of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, an ode to the late ’60s in Los Angeles, it’s as if a bright beacon from another, happier planet were saying, “Don’t forget this place in all its glory.” Instead of Tarantino’s usual pop perspective, the film is awash in emotion—a kind of longing for a time when theaters played double features all day and movie stars did not have social-media accounts.
The Irishman, a portrait of a paid killer, is steeped in regret, and Little Women, which tells the story of the four March sisters, is a wistful exploration of female empowerment in the 19th century. Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, as reinterpreted by the writer-director Greta Gerwig, is largely concerned with the protagonists’ struggle to find meaning in their lives. They are poor, they are female, and they endure many setbacks. In a way, the struggling writer Jo March in Little Women is a sister to Megyn Kelly, played by Charlize Theron in Bombshell, a film about the women of Fox News. In both cases, a woman’s personal victory is hard-fought and comes with no small number of challenges: Every win has an undercurrent of loneliness.
Marriage Story, written and directed by Noah Baumbach, is about the end of a relationship, but it is strangely romantic. A once-happy couple is suddenly at odds and must navigate a messy divorce; Adam Driver plays the confounded and then determined husband, and Scarlett Johansson the wife who imagines a bigger, more independent life for herself. The disconnect between them mirrors the profound and disturbing divide between people in America today. As it is in the movie, it is truly an irreconcilable split.
Other remarkable and emotional performances: Cynthia Erivo seized by the spirit of Harriet Tubman in Harriet; Joaquin Phoenix transforming from Arthur Fleck into the title character in Joker with pain, subtlety, and some remarkable dance moves; Jennifer Lopez fleecing rich men in Hustlers; Eddie Murphy flexing his comedic muscles as the determined filmmaker Rudy Ray Moore in Dolemite Is My Name. Even superheroes felt existential angst: In Avengers: Endgame, Chris Evans, as Captain America, longed for a simple, nonheroic life. He wanted to face his death without the aid of a magical shield. In 2019, that vulnerability felt like courage.
The end of the decade coincides with our 10th edition of Best Performances. This year we salute 29 actors who risked baring their souls in one way or another, reflecting the turbulent moment we’re living through. Our aim was to convey true emotion and vulnerability, while welcoming 2020 with hopes for a new beginning.
The first time I sang onstage was in the sixth grade. It was my first play. I sang a song called “Don’t Want No Real Job,” and the popular girl in school magically liked me. I had a lead role, and we began dating during the play. When the play ended, she dumped me. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out this equation: I had to get more leads.
Was she your first kiss?
Yes. You’d walk into the woods and kiss and come back, and everyone’s like, “Oooh.” So we did that.Did you have posters on your walls?
We visited New York and I bought a giant, giant, giant poster of Sandra Bullock. I put it on the ceiling of my bedroom. Not that Sandy’s not cool, but that’s a loser thing to do.What’s your secret skill?
I can jump really high. When I was a kid, I did tae kwon do, and we would have jumping contests.Does that come in handy when you’re playing Captain America?
You do find ways to use it.
Be sure to check out the rest of the interviews at W Magazine!
Gallery Link:
• Photoshoots > Outtakes > Session 099
Avengers: Endgame
The Red Sea Diving Resort
Knives Out
Defending Jacob
