Chris Evans struggling to find material for second directorial effort

Chris Evans is struggling to find a screenplay he wants to direct.

The Captain America star made his directorial debut in 2014 with independent romantic drama Before We Go, in which he also starred in alongside Alice Eve, and while he is keen to step behind the camera for a second time, he is struggling to find a good script to work with.

"I'm dying to direct, but I don't have the courage or focus to write, and the hardest thing is finding material," Evans said during an interview with Avengers co-star Scarlett Johansson as part of Variety's Actors on Actors series.

"The good material isn't just sitting there untouched," the 38-year-old said of the film. "When I directed, one of the trickiest things was I found some little broken-bird script and thought, 'Oh, I can nurse this thing back to health.' In retrospect, I do think even the best version of the movie I directed, there may still have been a ceiling based on the material."

When Johansson asked Evans if there were any subjects he'd like to develop for the screen, he shared his interest in Buddhism.

"Those are stories that I think can touch people. I think we're all looking to find out, from an egoic standpoint, what our relevance is, who we're supposed to be, what the definition of joy and love and purpose is," Evans said. "Loose concepts of Buddhism address a lot of that. I certainly don't have the skillset to write it, so I'm just on the hunt."