Chirs Evans’ skinny look in Captain America was crafted with a lot of effort ( Photo Credit – Instagram )
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Captain America is one of the oldest Avengers in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. The iconic role was played by Chris Evans and the titular character required the actor to be in great physical shape, and Evans was up for the challenge to transform himself for the role.
In 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, fans saw Evans’ Steve Rogers as a small and skinny character, but his body doubled when injected with a serum, becoming Marvel’s Captain America. However, his before-serum look was crucial for the films to show how Captain America was transformed, thanks to the effects of the Super Soldier Serum.
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Chris Evans’ Captain America Transformation
The skinny and small Steve Rogers was obviously a good-hearted person with morals, making him an obvious choice to become Captain America. When he was injected with Dr. Abraham Erskine’s Super Soldier Serum, he suddenly became a 6-foot-2-inch and 240-pound person with pure muscle. Well, in reality, Evans’ skinny role was played by his body double, Leander Deeny in Captain America: The First Avenger. Evans and Deeny, alongside Lola Visual Effects were crucial in creating Captain America’s significant influence on the MCU. Moreover, Captain America’s character arc spanned almost a decade and played a key role in shaping the MCU’s initial three phases.
How Did Marvel Created Small And Skinny Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers?
To explain Steve Rogers’ 5-foot 4 inches and 97 pounds look, MCU hired Lola Visual Effects to bring the incredible transformation of turning Evans into a pre-super-soldier. It took a combination of digitally shrinking Evans, using Deeny as a body double, and putting Evans’ performance on top of Deeny’s.
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The transformation began with director Joe Johnston and cinematographer Shelly Johnson filming Evans for the scene and then had Denny shoot the same scene and mimic Evans’s performance. When the crew finally filmed a clean plate shot of the scene, capturing just the background without any actors, they used all the different versions of each scene and combined them to create the final look of skinny Steve Rogers.
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The process of transforming Evans into the skinny Steve Rogers seen before the Super Soldier Serum was complex. First, they scaled down Evans to match the size of Deeny, and clean plate shots were used to digitally replace the areas Evans’ larger body previously covered. But the smaller version still retained Evans’ natural build. The next step involved digitally placing Evans’ face on Denny’s frame, which required careful adjustments because Evans’ facial structure and neck were bulkier than Denny’s. Without these adjustments, skinny Steve would have an incongruous strong jawline and bulkier face, looking disproportionate to the character’s pre-serum appearance.
The result was highly effective with the use of CGI, holding up well even years and several MCU phases later. Marvel also used this technique for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, featuring Evans as skinny Steve Rogers in a flashback scene with Bucky Barnes. But for this scene, Christopher George Sarris was used as the body double.
