Fresh from saving the world a lot as Captain America, Chris Evans made something of a pivot. Donning some spectacular knitwear, he turned agent of chaos in Rian Johnson’s whodunnit Knives Out as swaggering douchebag Ransom (remember that “Eat shit” monologue?), chewing the scenery and spitting it out with a grin on his face. Now in The Gray Man, he’s ploughing further into gleeful villainy as Lloyd Hansen – the specialist hired to take down Ryan Gosling’s CIA hitman Sierra Six; a sadistic, narcissistic, sociopathic manhunter who relishes the nastiest parts of the job. His Cap days are well and truly gone. “It does seem that I’ve aggressively gone 180 [degrees] from Steve Rogers,” Evans tells Empire. “But it just kind of unfolded that way.”
As the film’s co-writer Stephen McFeely notes, the unpredictability of Lloyd Hansen spices up every scene he’s in. “He’s a trainwreck of a human being,” he teases. “That guy can be anything in any scene, because all he wants is anarchy.” Getting to lean into a character who loved doing bad things was an opportunity that Evans relished – especially getting to do so with the Russo Brothers, directors he’d worked with on a whole string of Marvel movies: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. “I love the Russos, and I’ll pretty much do anything they ask me to do,” he says. “And this is a character I’ve never been able to play. He’s so liberated, and free, and honest. What I like about him is that you should almost fear his smile more than his scowl. I think he understands that what he does is bad and harmful, but I think he considers himself necessary. He thinks he’s a disrupter.” Bring on the chaos.
Read Empire’s full The Gray Man feature – talking to Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, the Russo Brothers and more about the making of their relentless action blockbuster – in our upcoming Summer Preview issue, on sale Thursday 12 May and available to pre-order online here. The Gray Man comes to UK cinemas from 15 July, and streams on Netflix from 22 July.