Chris Evans: I Needed Therapy Before Filming Captain America

USMagazine, Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 11:34am (PDT)

Even superheroes have their weaknesses.

Before Chris Evans began filming Captain America: The First Avenger (in theaters July 22), the 30-year-old actor went into therapy. "I wouldn't have done it had I not agreed to do Captain America and gone into panic mode," Evans told The New York Times.

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"The second I agreed to do it, I was like, 'All right, I'll do this, but I've got to start working on my head.'"

Evans famously turned down the career-changing role several times before finally changing his mind. "The question is: What's the endgame?" he wondered. "What's the goal? If the goal is to be a giant movie star, then yeah, this is a great way to achieve that. That's not necessarily what I'm trying to achieve."

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The actor also worried that if he agreed to appear in the film, he may not want to reprise the role later on. "In a few years, what if I don't want to act anymore?" Evans asked. "What if I just want to, I don't know, do something else?"

Through therapy, the actor realized that "the reason I kept saying no is because I was scared. Maybe this is exactly what I had to do. Maybe this is exactly what I had to face."

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Only time will tell if the action-packed flick will make Evans a household name. "It's nice job security, but it doesn't give a whole lot of freedom," he said. "That's the compromise, and it's worth it. These are good problems to be having. It's not like, 'Poor me, I'm working in the coal mines.'"

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