‘Gifted’ pairs Evans with new young leading lady
LOS ANGELES — Chris Evans glows around his new leading lady, who makes no secret of her excitement at hanging out with Captain America.
She gushingly talks up his talents — “He can tap dance!”— yet is just as quick to keep him honest when he says something questionable.
She also travels with a selection of stuffed animals, including a plush seal in a pink dress.
Evans’ latest co-star is 10-year-old Mckenna Grace. They star together in “Gifted,” a family drama opening locally Wednesday about an unassuming single guy raising his math-prodigy niece, determined not to let her brilliance interfere with her childhood.
Though Evans is an uncle in real life (his eldest sister has three kids, ages 3, 5 and 7), he says he bonded in a different way with Mckenna: as colleagues. Evans and “Gifted” director Marc Webb (“The Amazing Spider-Man”) saw dozens of girls read for the role, and Mckenna stood out with her childlike charm and old-soul maturity.
“She might as well have an apartment,” Evans says. “I’m telling you, I’ve met lesser pros in adults.”
The actress — also a regular on TV’s “Designated Survivor” — is the kind of professional who asks if she can bring her stuffed seal along while promoting her new film. Mckenna says she isn’t a math whiz like her character in “Gifted.” Instead, she feels like she’s gifted with a great family and amazing lifestyle.
“This experience is so wonderful, and it makes me so thankful for my life. I’m gifted that I have my family here to support me and that I’m here right now with Chris,” she says, adding, “Well, every job could be my last, you know?”
As for Evans’ gifts? she’s got that covered, too.
“He has lots of secret talents,” she says. “He can tap dance! Though he still has not tap danced for me.”
Evans sheepishly admits that he tap dances.
“I’m looking to tap dance in a movie,” the actor says. “I want to find one! Maybe a nice Gene Kelly biopic.”
“He can sing, and he can tap dance,” Mckenna declares, putting a point on the subject like a manager might.
The two did a lot of singing on set between takes, she says — mostly 1990s pop-rock.
“Her dad grew up listening to the Presidents of the United States of America, a band back in the ’90s,” Evans says, “so we would sing ‘Peaches’ a lot, which was one of their better songs.”
Mckenna says she and her dad also love watching Marvel movies together, so she already knew about Captain America before working with Evans.
“He’s so much more than Captain America,”