Avengers: Age of Ultron hits theaters this Friday. It’s gonna make so much money even though the internet refers to these four guys ^^^ as “The Offenders.” On Friday, I talked about how Chris Evans and Jeremy Renner gave two really different apologies after calling Black Widow “slut and wh*re.” Evans had the better apology, but neither of them is getting off the hook anytime soon.

As I predicted, Evans is trying hard to atone for his bad behavior. He did seem less drunk in the days following the slut shaming heard ’round the world. He knows we love seeing him with kids. He posed it up with children at a NYC Galaxy event (photos at the bottom of this post). Cute, right? Evans does sincerely love kids. He also posted a shoutout video to a hospitalized child superhero. Then he visited Jimmy Fallon to tell a special story about his nephew’s “I don’t wike it” speech habit. The clip includes Chris accidentally dropping the same phrase in an interview:

Yeah, it’s cute that Chris inadvertently imitated his nephew. But he did it while sitting next to Renner during the douche-bro press hour. So the endearing moment is lost.

Evans didn’t stop there. He spoke with Esquire on 4/24, which was two days after he and Renner messed up. He knew he was on probation. He talked about his dirty Boston mouth (it always gets him in trouble) and how he shares a moral compass with Steve Rogers. The interview in a true-false format, which compares him to Steve:

He lives by Cap’s no swearing rules: False: “I got a real bad potty mouth. I’m from Boston. That’s kind of a way of life back there. They’re a very expressive people.”

Evans shares Steve’s moral compass: True: “You hope to see some Steve qualities in you. He does set the bar pretty high. Any time you make a movie where you’re living in a certain head space for an extended period of time, it’s tough not to take a little piece home with you. Sometimes that’s better than other times. If you’re gonna end up taking a piece of Steve home, that’s not the worst thing. Whenever there was conflict, you can kind of tell yourself, ‘What would Steve do in this situation?’, because his moral compass and his approach to conflict resolution, rooted in selflessness, is a pretty healthy place to start. I don’t even know if he has manners–he’s just a very selfless man. You know what I mean? He doesn’t complain, he puts himself last, he just does what’s needed of him.”

He’s playing pop culture catch-up like the rest of us: True: “The last movie I saw: Birdman. Loved it. It was very helpful to me. Sometimes in this business, it’s easy to feel like you’re the only one struggling or you’re the only one who has these anxieties or insecurities. It’s a tricky business, a very heady business. Actors in general are heady people. Just seeing a movie so beautiful bringing to life someone who is struggling with all those things I just mentioned … it felt like a support group or something. It was nice. It was just nice to relate.”

[From Esquire]

Chris is so eager to please, but it will take time to win back his fans. More than simply hugging some kids. That’s nice to see, of course. But those awful words about Black Widow spilled so rapidly from his mouth, and he laughed so joyously. I’d like to see him learn something about casual sexism from this controversy. Because Steve Rogers would never say such things about a woman (and if he did, he’d never use the Boston “potty mouth” as an excuse).

Oh, and Evans held a Twitter funeral for his own beard yesterday. #tryhard

Dear beard
We had a good run, but this is where I leave you. Thank you for braving the Boston winter with me. I miss you already #Cap3Begins

— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) April 27, 2015

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

Photos courtesy of Getty & WENN