Chris Evans spent years telling anyone who asked that he was done with the shield, and Hollywood spent the same years ignoring him. The man who once looked like the industry’s most eligible bachelor is now a husband, a father of a one-year-old and, as of December 18, 2026, Steve Rogers again in Avengers: Doomsday. Heartthrob is still the word on the posters. At 45, it is just no longer the whole job description.
Sudbury, a youth theater and a mother with a clipboard
Christopher Robert Evans was born on June 13, 1981, in Boston and grew up in Sudbury, Massachusetts. The acting came from home: his mother, Lisa Evans, has run Concord Youth Theatre since 1974, and Chris was on its stage from the age of nine. In October 2019 he came back to help open the company’s permanent home at 53 Church Street, standing next to his mother, who was close to tears. Here is my read on that day: Marvel made him famous, but the most telling photo op of his career was a ribbon-cutting for a children’s theater in Concord.
After high school he went to New York, and his first feature was The Newcomers (2000). Then came Not Another Teen Movie (2001) and the Human Torch in Fantastic Four (2005), the role that taught Hollywood he could be both the joke and the guy you root for.
Captain America, and the retirement that did not stick
In 2011 he became Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger, then carried the character through The Avengers, The Winter Soldier, Civil War and the 2019 farewell in Avengers: Endgame, where Steve got his dance with Peggy and an old man’s bench by the lake. That was supposed to be the end.
It was not. In December 2025 Marvel showed a teaser in theaters before Avatar: Fire and Ash: Steve rides home on a motorcycle, puts the uniform away and holds a newborn, followed by the line “Steve Rogers will return in Avengers: Doomsday.” Directors Joe and Anthony Russo posted it on Instagram. What strikes me is the choice of scene. Marvel could have brought him back with a punch; it brought him back with a baby, which is either very clever marketing or the studio reading the actor’s own year very closely.
The career between the shields
Outside Marvel, Evans has picked roles that poke at his own nice-guy image. He was the spoiled Ransom Drysdale in Knives Out (2019), the father of an accused teenager (Jaeden Martell) in Apple TV+’s Defending Jacob (2020), the voice of Buzz in Pixar’s Lightyear (2022), and Bryce Dallas Howard’s hired escort in the Tennessee Williams adaptation The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2008). In 2023 he made Ghosted with Ana de Armas, and in 2024 he played opposite Dwayne Johnson in the Christmas action film Red One.
The best of the recent run is Materialists (A24, 2025), Celine Song’s follow-up to Past Lives, where he plays John, a broke theater actor working as a caterer and Dakota Johnson’s ex. Next is Sacrifice, Romain Gavras’s satire with Anya Taylor-Joy, which premiered in Toronto in September 2025 and arrives on Netflix on October 16, 2026. He plays Mike Tyler, a fading action star at a charity gala in a Greek mine. A fading action star, played by the man who just got Captain America back. Somebody in casting has a sense of humor, and I approve.
From bachelor to husband and dad
The old version of this page listed his exes like a tour schedule: Jessica Biel in the early 2000s, Jenny Slate on and off in 2016-2018. The rumor about Selena Gomez never had a source behind it; we took that one apart separately, and it does not survive a close look. People named him Sexiest Man Alive in November 2022, which in hindsight was the industry’s farewell card to his single years.
He was already with Portuguese actress Alba Baptista, best known for Warrior Nun. They married in September 2023 at a private estate on Cape Cod, with phones collected at the door, and Evans confirmed it at New York Comic Con a few weeks later, adding that there had been a second wedding in Portugal. Their daughter, Alma Grace Baptista Evans, was born in Massachusetts in late October 2025; People gives the date as October 24. In March 2026 the couple made their first Oscars together, where he presented the screenplay award.
I like that the baby’s name carries both surnames, and I like even more that we know almost nothing else. No sale of first photos, no nursery tour. For a man whose fame was built on being looked at, that is a quiet and sensible choice.
Still a Massachusetts man
The 2023 version of this article said he lived in Los Angeles and was 40 “as of 2021”. Both lines aged badly. He is 45, his family life is rooted in Massachusetts, where he married and where his daughter was born, and he remains a loud New England Patriots fan, the one fandom no studio contract has ever managed to tone down.
My take: the heartthrob label was never wrong, it was just incomplete. The kid from the Concord Youth Theatre got the cape, gave it back, found a wife, a daughter and a few roles that let him be ridiculous. Now he picks up the shield again in December, and the teaser that sold it shows Steve holding a baby. For once, Marvel cast the scene from life.
Sources
- Sacrifice, official trailer (YouTube)
- Marvel’s official Avengers: Doomsday teaser confirming Steve Rogers’ return (via WBRC/Gray News, Dec 23, 2025)
- The A.V. Club: Marvel confirms Chris Evans’ return for Avengers: Doomsday
- Netflix Tudum: Sacrifice release date, plot and photos
- Apple TV+ press release: Defending Jacob
- ET: Chris Evans marries Alba Baptista in private Cape Cod wedding
- Yahoo: Chris Evans confirms marriage to Alba Baptista, reveals two weddings (New York Comic Con)
- The Boston Globe: Chris Evans and Alba Baptista welcome their first child
- Yahoo / People: Chris Evans and Alba Baptista’s daughter’s name
- AOL / People: Chris Evans and Alba Baptista at the 2026 Oscars
- Rolling Stone: Chris Evans on Materialists
- The Boston Globe: Captain America to the rescue of Concord theatre group (2019)
- The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (film record)
