Christopher Robert Evans (born June 13, 1981) is an American actor. His films as a leading performer have grossed $11.4 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing film stars of all time and one of the world's highest-paid actors. His accolades include nominations for two Critics' Choice Awards and a Drama League Award.
After a number of early roles, Evans gained recognition for portraying Johnny Storm / Human Torch in the superhero films Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007). He achieved global stardom for portraying Steve Rogers / Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), beginning with Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and appearing in eleven films for the franchise; he was twice nominated for the Critics' Choice Award for Best Actor in an Action Movie. He made further appearances in adaptations of comic books and graphic novels: TMNT (2007), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), Snowpiercer (2013), Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (2023), and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).
Aside from comic book roles, Evans has starred in the drama Gifted (2017), the mystery film Knives Out (2019), the television miniseries Defending Jacob (2020), and the action films The Gray Man (2022) and Red One (2024). He made his directorial debut in 2014 with the romantic drama Before We Go, which he also produced and starred in. His Broadway debut in the 2018 revival of Kenneth Lonergan's play Lobby Hero earned him a Drama League Award nomination.
Christopher Robert Evans was born on June 13, 1981, in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in the nearby town of Sudbury. His mother, Lisa (née Capuano), is an artistic director at the Concord Youth Theater, and his father, Bob, is a dentist. His father is of Irish descent, while his mother is of half Irish and half Italian descent. His parents divorced in 1999.
Evans has two sisters, Carly and Shanna, and a brother, Scott. He and his siblings were raised Catholic. Their uncle, Mike Capuano, served as mayor of Somerville, Massachusetts, from 1990 to 1999, and as a US Representative from 1999 to 2019.
He enjoyed musical theater as a child, and attended acting camp. He played Randolph MacAfee in the musical Bye Bye Birdie. He and siblings also performed in front of relatives during Christmases, recalling that being onstage "felt like home." Before starting his senior year of high school, Evans spent the summer in New York City, and took classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. Evans graduated from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in 1999. He was a schoolmate of Jeremy Strong. His first acting gig outside of community theater was for Eric Ogden's short film Paper Boy, which he received via Backstage.
Evans's first credited appearance was in a short educational film titled Biodiversity: Wild About Life! in 1997. In 1999, Evans was the model for "Tyler" in Hasbro's board game Mystery Date. The special edition of the game included an electronic phone, which Evans is shown speaking into on the game box.
In the same year, Evans made his screen debut in a television film, The Newcomers; a family drama in which he plays a boy called Judd who falls in love with a girl (Kate Bosworth). Evans also had a lead role in the television series Opposite Sex which lasted for eight episodes. Lastly, Evans acted in an episode of The Fugitive titled "Guilt".
In 2001, he starred in Not Another Teen Movie, a parody of teen movies, in which he plays a high school footballer. The film garnered mainly negative reviews, but grossed $38 million domestically and $28 million overseas for a worldwide $66 million.
In 2004, he had a lead role in The Perfect Score, a teen heist-comedy about a group of students who break into an office to steal answers to the SAT exam. The film was critically panned; Matthew Leyland of the BBC thought Evans' performance was "bland", and the cast had "little chemistry". Also that year, he co-starred in the action-thriller Cellular, with Jason Statham, Kim Basinger and William H. Macy. Evans plays college student Ryan, who must save a kidnapped woman (Basinger), after randomly receiving a phone call from her. Although the feature received a mixed response, Slant Magazine's review opined that "Evans proves himself a sufficiently charismatic leading man". In a retrospective interview, Evans remarked that some of his early films were "really terrible".
In 2005, Evans starred in the independent drama Fierce People, an adaptation of Dirk Wittenborn's 2002 novel of the same name. He also starred in London (2005), a romantic drama, in which he played a drug user with relationship problems. London was negatively received by critics; Variety magazine described it as "noxious", and thought Evans' character was the worst, and film critic Roger Ebert called the film "dreck".
For his first comic book role, he portrayed superhero Johnny Storm / Human Torch in Fantastic Four (2005), based on the Marvel Comic of the same name. Upon release, the film was a commercial success despite a divided reception. In his mixed review, Joe Leydon of Variety praised the cast for their efforts and thought Evans gave a "charismatic breakout performance". Two years later, he reprised the role of Johnny Storm / Human Torch in the sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007). Toronto Star's Rob Salem thought the film was a "significant improvement" from the first, and the critic from Chicago Reader thought the cast were "amusing enough" to carry the sequel. In 2016, reflecting on his experience of the Fantastic Four films, Evans said they left him "a little uneasy – because the movies weren't exactly the way I'd envisioned them".
He voiced the character Casey Jones in the animation TMNT (2007), based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book series. The film was released by Warner Bros. Pictures and The Weinstein Company, to mixed reviews from critics but was a commercial success, grossing $95 million worldwide. Next, he starred in Danny Boyle's science fiction thriller Sunshine (2007), about a group of astronauts on a dangerous mission to reignite the dying sun. It garnered generally favorable reviews; Roger Ebert wrote the cast were "effective ... they almost all play professional astronaut/scientists, and not action-movie heroes". He also had a role in the comedy drama The Nanny Diaries (2007), in which he plays the love interest to Scarlett Johansson's character. His final release of 2007 was in the science fiction animation Battle for Terra. It premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, followed by a wider theatrical release in 2009. Critical reception was largely mixed.
In 2008, Evans appeared as Detective Paul Diskant in the thriller Street Kings, with co-stars Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, and Hugh Laurie. He was cast in The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, co-starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Ellen Burstyn. It is a romantic drama based on Tennessee Williams' 1957 screenplay. The feature received negative reviews, and The Village Voice critic called Evans' performance "catatonic". The following year, he played a character with telekinetic abilities in the science fiction thriller Push, with Dakota Fanning and Camilla Belle. The film's response was generally negative, while Mick LaSelle of San Francisco Chronicle criticized the story which "makes no sense", and predicted that Evans, "one of these days he's going to make a good movie".
In 2010, Evans appeared in Sylvain White's The Losers, an adaptation of the comic book series of the same name from the DC Comics imprint Vertigo. Evans was drawn to playing Captain Jake Jensen because the character "doesn't take things too seriously. He's the one that kind of loves life and he's always looking for a joke". Although the film gained mixed reviews, The Guardian's critic praised the cast for their "breezy charm" and for Evans' comic relief. Evans appeared in another comic book adaptation, Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), in which he portrayed Lucas Lee, one of Ramona Flowers' seven evil exes. The film was a box-office bomb but received positive reviews from critics and found a second life as a cult film.