for me it's trying to stay present you know i i had certain beliefs and and
uh desires and i wanted to be a certain type of person but but a lot of my thoughts were kind
of um i guess rooted in the ego you know and when i say the ego i don't necessarily mean arrogance
i just mean the part of your brain that is the that says i it's the thinker um and and that part
of your brain is very uh self-serving and it's very uh it lives in a world of comparisons and
time and none of these things are helpful and and it just kind of would consistently take me out of
a positive place you know the man i wanted to be the man i thought i should be or
you know thinking you know how you should be doing things or what you should be doing but then
not executing those things leaves you in this kind of spiral of disappointment
but again all that thinking is based on time you're basing who you are and what you think
you should be on who you'll be tomorrow and who you were yesterday and uh so so for me the most
effective tool i've adopted is just trying to stay present when you're in the moment um
it's not like you've uh satisfied the part of your brain that that thinks in terms of time
it's that the part of your brain that thinks in terms of time just gets quiet
kind of doesn't exist anymore so a lot of my old hurdles have kind of become
far more manageable by just just staying present all you really have in life i think is just now a
series of nouns um and i think when you can kind of surrender to that um you can't lose
so so for me getting through the struggles that are associated with day-to-day life it's just be
present don't don't think about tomorrow don't think about the next minute just where are you
right now don't miss right now be here now um and a nice sense of calm just kind of washes over
if you could give yourself advice like look back and and and talk to the 12 year old version of
yourself what advice would you give you know what i'd say this sounds it might it might seem
oversimplified but it's profound i'd say it's been a big thing for me you know
it's so funny how noisy my brain is and everyone's brain is noisy it's what it does it makes thoughts
and the problem is i think in most of our lives the root of suffering is following that brain
noise and listening to that brain noise and actually identifying with it as if it's who
you are that's just the noise your brain makes you know and more often than not it probably
doesn't have much to say that's gonna help you um i probably started thinking this way when i was
you know maybe 15 16 years old um and they they say you don't really wake up from uh dreams
you wake up from nightmares uh and not to say my childhood was a nightmare at all by any means but
but i certainly started to see a pattern uh you know where whatever my struggles or challenges
were at that age um if they were ever kind of met or satisfied i started to see how the next day
my brain found new struggles and challenges uh to be at odds with and you start to realize how
amazingly resilient that part of your brain is that that can just create conflict and truly be
at odds with what is and i i started to worry that no matter what happened or where i went in my life
will that always be that way what's preventing me from being truly happy or truly peaceful or
present um what is the thing that's creating this conflict and you start to realize a lot of it you
know when you take just it's not those individual things well that girl didn't like me or that guy
is smarter than me that's that's not it it's the part of your brain that is driving this machine
the eye that ego it's it's a very self-serving animal and and it lives in a world of comparison
for captain america i read that you turned down the role a number of times can just explain why
it was because it was a big commitment they wanted six movies and you know normally you do movies one
at a time and if one of those movies hits and is a success and your life noticeably changes you know
your personal life your anonymity your privacy is affected you have the opportunity to stop
and regroup and go home and just you know make a decision from then on how you want to proceed
with your life the worry was if this movie hits and there is a lifestyle change and i don't react
well to it i don't have the opportunity the luxury to say you know what guys i'm good i
think i'm going to go back to doing you know indies or maybe something else you know maybe
in a couple years i don't want to act anymore i don't know it's just six movies can be spread
over 10 years and you're making a decision for a decade and it's not just a decision for you
if the lifestyle changes to a point where your anonymity is compromised then
it's really not your right to complain anymore so if all of a sudden someone in your family ends up
in a hospital and you're going in and out every day and someone's taking pictures of you and you
complain everyone's going to say too bad you made this bed sleeping it and that's a shame
and that's a decision you have to make and prepare for this isn't this ripple effect
isn't just going to be about me and that's scary you know and you think well is there another way
to get where i want to get without this you know what i mean if the strings attached are six movies
that's a scary loss of control that i just wasn't ready to process and so i said no uh i asked every
human being in my life what they thought and you know everyone said i should do the movie and um i
did i said i've gone to therapy i went to therapy i was like fine talk to talk to a therapist see
what they have to say and you know uh you know because i do struggle with i get anxiety about
certain things and press and things like that it's you know all those things were tied into
marvel responsibilities and it kind of started to shift on me it started to feel like maybe the
thing you're most scared of is exactly what you should do maybe this is actually what you should
push yourself into and it just started to make sense to me that way
and i said let's go for it and uh you know it was a bumpy acclamation it was certainly
a nerve-wracking first couple weeks of shooting as to whether or not i made the right choice but
in retrospect it certainly was oh my god can you imagine kicking myself
oh and my agent's got you know a lifetime supply and i told you so off that one a lot
of eastern philosophies whether it's buddhism or taoism hinduism they all kind of share a similar
awareness of that brain noise and it's you know potential pitfalls and and at that age i just kind
of that that's the one thing that just made the most sense to me that's the one thing that i saw
um as it just made sense to the treadmill that i saw myself running on that was the one thing that
i said yeah that's exactly that's what's going on here is this is just this brain that just uh it's
no matter what i do it's gonna find new things scared me and that worried me and uh that that's
what kind of made me wanna pursue a little bit more exploration into that way of thinking
i'm a big fan of reading big fan of eckhart tolle that guy is that guy's
it the power now is a fantastic book new earth's a fantastic book stillness speaks
i'll say anything by eckhart tolle to me that's kind of like it's like my bible any day i'm having
a rough time or i can't seem to change the channel i can pick up any one of his books and just read
any chapter and it just resonates and it's a nice feeling to know that you're not the only one
thinking this way or going through these struggles or hurdles and uh
and it just kind of um exercises that muscle and works out that part of the brain really
well so i try to look at it as practice you know my biggest struggle in my early 20s was believing
i understood a concept or a certain philosophy that i subscribed to but then consistently not
living that way and not executing those those beliefs and struggling being depressed or um
you know disappointed in life and that's that's i knew better but i wasn't living that way and
that's really frustrating and and the problem is that's all just ego that's ego sneaking in the
back door that that's that's that's you kind of the part of your brain that thinks about
the story of chris wants to see that story in a certain light but that's just ego that's that's
you know that's not real either um so for me it's a matter of being perfectly okay exactly
where i am and practicing it's like uh if i was gonna try and pick up a sport you know i'm not
gonna be amazing tomorrow today i just have to dribble just gotta dribble the ball um and if
the ball gets away from me today it's okay get it back and just dribble again even if it takes
all of my focus and energy just to dribble this ball maybe tomorrow it won't and it won't be as
consuming um but but it's okay to be where i am i don't have to wake up tomorrow and be a pro and i
think that um that mentality has gone a long way for me in terms of just surrendering to the moment
surrendering to where i am and surrendering even to my failures you know your failures are okay too
i used to really be very harsh hard on myself um if i thought i wasn't accomplishing something or
reaching a certain level but you know be with your failures they're they're just as educational and
just as uh opening to the process as the successes and eventually if you're i would hope um you know
the notion of success and failure will begin to dilute as well so yeah just just just practice
you