Watch: Chris Evans on Starting Point website: 'Everybody thought it was a joke'
Oct. 30 (UPI) -- Chris Evans appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live and discussed the struggles of starting his political website, A Starting Point, which offers bipartisan information on a number of issues.
The website promotes civic engagement and offers interviews with elected officials from both parties. Evans said on Thursday that getting elected officials to participate in A Starting Point was hard at first.
"Initially everybody thought it was a joke. I don't know what I thought. I think foolishly I just thought this is such a great idea, who wouldn't want to be a part of this, you know. I thought the problem was going to be turning people away. Nobody responded, everybody thought it was a joke, everybody thought we were somehow trying to prank them" the Captain America star said.
Evans, after emails and videos didn't work to convince politicians to participate, traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak with them personally. Eventually, the website caught on with Evans able to get over 200 elected officials onboard.
The 39-year-old, however, was unable to get President Donald Trump to take part in the project.
"We asked him, he said no. He said no twice, so I did my part," Evans said.
Evans also said that regardless of their political leanings, any elected official is invited to take part in A Starting Point. The website has fact checkers and if a statement doesn't check out, it won't make it to the site.
"You know we live in this time where if you disagree with someone you think, 'Don't speak to them' and the only problem is these are elected officials. They're already in office, they already got power. They're writing bills that affect your life. To pretend they don't exist I think is more pernicious than sitting down with them, hearing what they have to say and letting it be you know a landscape of competing ideas," he said.
"Sometimes I had to sit there and squirm a little bit and bite my tongue, but again, the site is designed to be fair and transparent and if you're in office, if you got elected, you got a right to be on the site," he continued.