'It was really about their friendship': How Chris Evans engaged his Marvel friends for those hilarious cameos in 'Ghosted'
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Chris Evans may have bid farewell to the legendary character of Captain America in 2019, but he unquestionably didn't leave behind the friendships he made while working on the Marvel films. Everyone is aware of how much Marvel Cinematic Universe fans appreciate cameos, and in 'Ghosted', Evans made sure to give his followers just that.
The former Marvel actor plays local farmer Cole in the new action-romance film, which is currently streaming on Apple TV+. The movie's plot revolves around Cole's certainty that Sadie (Ana de Armas) is the one, but she ghosts him after one wonderful date. When he learns that Sadie is a CIA agent rather than the international art curator she claimed to be, he unwittingly finds himself caught up in a global spy mission to save the world after making a brave attempt to win her back by traveling to London. But as Cole discovers the stunning truth about Sadie, there are more surprises in store for him.
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Who appeared in the cameos?
Cole and Sadie are attacked by a group of bounty hunters while attempting to get home safely thanks to one of her ex-boyfriends; all of the bounty hunters are played by familiar faces. Anthony Mackie first appears, but John Cho's character, who is playing another assassin, kills him right away. Sebastian Stan's character, another assassin, kills Cho's character right away.
However, it turns out that Mackie's assassin wasn't truly gone, as he manages to jump into a car and run down Stan's character. Later in the film, amid a significant brawl in a dizzying revolving restaurant, Ryan Reynolds makes another unexpected cameo as yet another of Sadie's ex-boyfriends since Cole can't seem to get away from them.
'I hate asking'
Fletcher said, "[Chris'] phone book is obviously quite interesting if you're into that sort of thing. Ryan said to me privately that when he called Chris for a cameo in his movie, Chris came the next day, and that for him was a real sign of what a great guy Chris was. So Ryan did the same when the call went out. And that's how it works. It was really about their friendship," according to EW.
Evans claims that he first approached those four actors about appearing, but he didn't much like the notion of approaching anyone. He said, "Well, you've got to do that awful thing where you hit someone up and say, 'Hey, you want to come do a cameo on this thing?' I hate asking. I hate it."
'I didn't feel bad asking Ryan'
De Armas notes that Evans had a couple of IOUs from his former co-stars while seated next to him. She said, "They've done it to you though." Evans stated, "Yeah, well, that's why I didn't feel bad asking Ryan — I did something for Ryan in Free Guy."
Evans said, "But you're still just like, 'Sorry, do you want to do this?' And they're good buddies, so of course they're going to jump in. But it's like asking someone to pick you up from the airport. 'I know I really don't want to ask you to do this, but can you help me move on a Sunday?' But yeah, they came through and they were great."
'It's fun seeing all those faces'
Evans certainly hated asking his friends to play cameos, but he liked having them on location and how their sequences played out. Evans said, "It's fun seeing all those faces. They're old buddies, so it just kind of feels good. It's like when your buddy does pick you up from the airport, you're like, 'Thanks man. Thanks for showing up'."
De Armas laughs and adds, "They were not shy at all. They were all in. They came with characters." Evans says in agreement, "They didn't try to be cool. They showed up and were willing to be in this movie. That was something early on in the script that everybody loved."
"I think at some point someone talked about maybe cutting that sequence and everyone was like, 'No, everybody loves that. The assassin sequence is great. The cameos are perfect.' They were such good sports," Evans stated.