They made Chris Evans look small in Captain America: The First Avenger mostly with a mix of body doubles, visual effects, and camera tricks. The skinny Steve Rogers scenes were especially built by filming a smaller performer, then digitally replacing and shrinking parts of Evans’ performance to fit that frame.

How it worked

  • A body double stood in for the “small” Steve Rogers shots, giving the scene the right proportions.
  • Evans’ performance was then layered on top with CGI, so it still looked like him, just much thinner and shorter.
  • The effects team also adjusted his face, neck, shoulders, and overall silhouette to make him look frail instead of simply “scaled down”.
  • Practical tricks helped too, like oversized props and careful framing to sell the illusion.

Why it looks convincing

The main reason it works is that the movie did not rely on one trick alone. It combined performance, digital compositing, and set/prop choices so Steve Rogers looked like a believable 98-pound weakling before the serum, not like a cartoon shrink-ray version of Chris Evans.

In one sentence

They basically shot a smaller body double, mapped Chris Evans’ acting onto it, and polished the result with CGI and filming tricks so Skinny Steve felt real.

TL;DR: body double + CGI + camera trickery.