Many people struggle with their mental health in the world. According to the ADAA , anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States. While so many people struggle, it can be hard for any individual to speak out about their experience, and that’s why it’s so important and meaningful when somebody does.
Especially when that somebody is a superhero.
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Chris Evans has opened up about how even a superhero like himself has struggled with his mental health.
In an episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast , Chris opened up about how after the success of Fantastic Four , he felt his relationship to acting change. “When it becomes your job, weird egoic strings become attached and precautions and plans and all of a sudden it starts to feel a bit heavier.”
“And, yeah, anxiety comes with that.”
“Because it was also during the proliferation of the Internet Age where all of a sudden you can read people’s reactions online and all of a sudden your egoic story, your narrative, becomes entangled with what was once just this pure little ball of joy,” he went on.
Chris then revealed that he began to “have mini panic attacks on set.”
“They were enough to throw me a bit and enough to make me a question, like I said earlier, if I was on the right path,” he revealed. “I really started to think, ‘I’m not sure if this is the right thing for me. I’m not sure if I’m feeling as healthy as I should be feeling.'”
Chris revealed that was how he was feeling when Marvel initially offered him the role of Captain America.
“I hung up and I kind of thought about it. And I really, for some reason, looked at it as, ‘This is the temptation. This is it. This is the fork in the road. And I really want to kind of wake up to my life and take control of it. And I think this is where you say no,'” Chris said. “So, I called my team back and I said, ‘Listen, thank them very much but I think I’m going to say no thanks.'”
Luckily, people in Chris’ life advised him to reconsider.
“I had a lot of people just say to me—they understood where I was coming from—but they said it sounded like I was making decisions based on fear, which is not untrue. They said, ‘You can’t do that. You can’t live life that way,'” Chris revealed, and after Marvel offered a few more times, he agreed to take the role, calling it “the best decision” he ever made.
