In October, before winter and retiring his pool for the season, Chris Evans filmed himself backflipping shirtless into the water. For fans used to a shirtless Evans sighted only in Marvel films, the recording was a shock: Evans has several tattoos on his chest. But there’s a reason fans probably haven’t seen Cap’s ink.
In a 2014 interview with The Hot Hits, Evans explained why he carefully selects his tattoo placement.
“I really like tattoos, but the problem is when you wear a shirtsleeve shirt in a movie. That’s an extra hour in the makeup chair. It’s not worth it. I’m all for tattoos, but just somewhere they can be hidden.” Evans also says you won’t see him in V-necks on screen for that same reason, given has a tattoo across his upper chest.
The real question here is why Marvel action heroes can't have tattoos—do studios think children will be influenced to ink up; is ink a negative thing? We’ll leave those aside for now and dive into Evans’ body art. Because that’s what it is after all.
Chris Evans’ arm tattoos
Let’s start with the money makers: his arms.
Evans has ink on each shoulder, including a taurus zodiac symbol on his left shoulder (his mother’s sign) and the word “loyalty” in cursive on his right.
Evans used to have a Mandarin character—“氏” (or “shì”)—on his left bicep, but has since removed it. According to Page Six, he believed the character stood for “family,” though the denotation is narrower, meaning something like “clan name.”
Chris Evans’ chest tattoos
Evans’ chest is where most of his body art exists. Tattooer Josh Lord is the artist of at least two of his chest tats. Somewhere around his ribs, he has an Avengers cast tattoo. In an interview with Revolver, Lord said Evans wasn’t done after the Avengers ink. “He actually has continued to come back for more tattoos. We are now going to start on a whole big new chest piece for him.”
Lord was likely talking about Evans’ eagle tattoo, one of his more recent. It's meaning has not yet been revealed.
Just over the eagle on Evans’ left pec is a quote from the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle. It reads, “When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.”
On Evans’ right ribs, he has another inscription. It reads: “In loving memory of Bardsley with me always.” The inscription honors Evans’s late friend who died in a 2003 car accident.
Beneath the eagle and above his friend’s name, Evans has the tattoo “DODGER,” his dog’s name.
Chris Evans’ leg tattoos
Evans wears the letters “SCS” on his right ankle, a combination of his siblings’ first initials.
