Chris Evans recently spoke fondly on his time portraying Johnny Storm/Human Torch in 20th Century Fox‘s Fantastic Four films.
“That new wave of superhero films, the Spider-Man, the X-Men, they had just begun,” Evans told GQ prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike. “So it was really exciting. I was ecstatic, and it was a fun role to play. It was full of life, and he reacted the way I probably would’ve reacted if I was given superpowers.”
The actor added, “We had a lot of fun. This was in the early 2000s. This is before social media. I think everyone probably had a Nokia flip phone, so it still was a time where in between takes, everyone’s not buried in their phone, You’re conversing, and at night you’re socializing. And yeah, it was my early twenties. It was a good time.”
Chris Evans’ pre-Captain America comic book roles
These days, Evans is perhaps best known for playing Steve Rogers/Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe from 2011 to 2019. Before donning Cap’s shield, however, he was the first actor to play Marvel‘s Human Torch in a big-budget Fantastic Four movie. Evans starred as Johnny Storm in Fox‘s Fantastic Four, which whit theaters in 2005. He reprised his role in the 2007 sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
That said, Evans actually had a few other comic book roles before taking up the mantle of Captain America in four years later. He portrayed Lucas Lee in Universal’s 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, based on the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley. That same year, Evans played Jensen in Warner Bros. Pictures’ Vertigo Comics adaptation The Losers.
