Chris Evans assembles the Avengers for coronavirus relief
2020 has been a fascinating year for watching celebrities figure out, in painfully obvious real-time, exactly how much worth their star power has in a world without anything to actually star in. From genuine, life-saving charity efforts, to acts of near-literal communion, to the soul-sucking spectacle of the Twitter sing-a-long, famous culture has run the gamut of responses to the current crisis, all fueled—presumably—by a shared belief that they oughtta be doing something, right?
As usual, Marvel star Chris Evans seems to be handling this challenge better than most: The Avengers star joined Instagram last night to accept fellow Chris Chris Pratt’s All-In Challenge, an effort by a wide variety of actors, athletes, and other celebs to raise money for organizations providing food to people affected by the COVID-19 crisis. (Feeding America, Meals On Wheels, World Central Kitchen, and No Kid Hungry have all been named as recipients of the foundation’s efforts.) And while Evans was, himself, forced to admit that he couldn’t match Pratt’s offer to get a lucky donor eaten by a dinosaur in a Jurassic Park movie, he did have an even more potent force to call upon than digital lizards: The power of friendship. Extremely rich, famous, and cinematic friendship.
That’s right, Avengers fans: Chris Evans is offering the chance for you to win what we can only assume will be a superhumanly awkward online hangout with himself and five of his closest movie set friends: Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, and Jeremy Renner. (And no, that list does not appear to be, uh, negotiable.) Out of everyone who enters the charity sweepstakes, one winner will be chosen to have a 40-minute chat with the Avengers themselves, half of which will apparently be a Q&A (“Are you all really friends?” “Yes.” “Really?” “Yes!”), with the other half devoted to playing board games like Scattergories. (What’s the matter, Captain America? Can’t spring for a copy of Jackbox?)
Anyway, this is both a) for a good cause, and b) a really excellent way to watch all the things that happen to Jeremy Renner’s face when he’s asked to come up with a good answer for “Things Found In The Ocean” that starts with the letter Z. So if you’ve got a big Marvel fan in your life, maybe consider donating. (Although you also might want to wait and see what the people Evans challengerd will do; we can’t imagine Billy Porter won’t bring some pretty amazing heat.)