The Avengers

In this summer’s hit, "Captain America," there’s little that Chris Evans’ First Avenger couldn’t do. Make impossible leaps over fire pits? Sure. Hold on tight to Nazi super planes as they rocket through the sky? Yep. But as the film finished and he wakes up from a seven decade sleep, a mesmerizingly bright Times Square blows his mind — and gives a taste of what’s to come in next summer’s epic superhero ensemble.

Sitting down to promote his upcoming indie drama, "Puncture," Evans touched on the mega Marvel caper, "The Avengers," due out next summer.

"He’s in modern day, he has troubles," he says of his Captain America character. "He actually gets to have things that he might have be able to shoulder, you know what I mean? He can’t just put it on his back. He’s a fish out of water. Everyone knows he’s dead, and he’s in a foreign time, and ’The Avengers,’ he gets to be a little bit darker, which is nice."

Evans admits having his own misgivings about the film at the start of production, given the films massive cast; Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Ruffalo and Cobie Smulders also star in the Joss Whedon-directed project.

"Going into it, you’re like, who knows? I don’t know how this is gonna go," he admitted. "There’s a lot of big actors, a lot of big egos, everyone has their own thing going. I can’t say enough; it couldn’t have gone better. I have high hopes. I hope it’s awesome."

In large part, the rave reviews come from his time working with a certain co-star.

"I think most of my stuff is with Downey. He’s just so good, man," Evans raved. "Again, I didn’t know what to expect about him, either. And he just — I’m so f*cking lucky. He was so cool. I’m not that great with press sometimes, and he was so like a mentor. He’s so willing to give advice and he doesn’t feel like, you’ll do a take and he gives you a little thumbs up and he just makes your day. You’re like, Downey just gave me a thumbs up! That just made my life. I’m like skipping to my trailer, and this guy had no idea the impact he just had. He’s just such a nice guy and he was the first dude — I’ve made a lot of movies with a lot of big actors — the first guy I’d ever been on set, and he comes on set, and it was the first time I was ever like, ’Wow, that’s a f*cking movie star. That is a f*cking movie star.’"

As for the plot of the film, and how faithful it will be to the spirit of the classic comics series, Evans is bullish on that, too.

"I think they struck a really good balance. There’s obviously action, you’ve got all these super heroes, there’s gonna be constant battle, I think every ten pages, there’s going to be some sort of action, but you can have all the action in the world, if you don’t have some substance, you got nothing," he said of the film’s writer and director. "I don’t want to sh*t talk other movies, I know a lot of other movies like that where it’s all action and no heart. It’s not easy trying to bring all those characters together and find a story, but the best thing about Joss is that Joss is a fan, Joss is a comic book guy. It feels so nice working with a guy that is well, the people I am trying to please is Joss. Joss is one of those dudes. And if Joss is happy with the dialog, if Joss is happy with the wardrobe, if Joss is happy, then I’m happy. Because he’s Comic-Con, he’s one of these dudes who would be in the audience geeking out, so if he’s happy, I’m happy."