Chris Evans, Anya Taylor-Joy on TIFF Satire ‘Sacrifice’

Chris Evans and Anya Taylor-Joy began most days filming their new movie, “Sacrifice,” by hiking up the side of a volcano in Santorini, Greece.

“You’re just looking around at the majesty of the world,” Evans says of the panoramic view. “It’s easy to completely lose yourself, as you would if there weren’t a film crew capturing your every move.”

But, of course, Evans and Taylor-Joy weren’t just there to admire the scenery. “Sacrifice,” directed by Romain Gavras (“Athena”) from a script he co-wrote with Will Arbery (“Succession”), is an audacious send-up of celebrity, wealth and radicalism. In it, Evans plays a movie star experiencing an existential crisis when he’s tapped by Taylor-Joy’s cult leader to be sacrificed to fulfill a prophecy to stop a volcano from erupting. It’s an out-there premise — bold, original and, to borrow a term from Taylor-Joy, a bit “wacky” — that left the actor, who had been grappling with a severe case of climate change anxiety, thinking about her own fears about the planet.

“I was becoming a real bummer at parties,” Taylor-Joy says. “And the script came by and I realized, like, ‘Oh, this is what you do with big feelings. You go away and you make art about it.’ Even though it might not change the outcome of what’s bothering you, it allows you a different way of releasing it.”

Taylor-Joy says filming the movie — shot over 10 weeks in the bowels of caves and caverns in Greece and Bulgaria, as well as atop the previously mentioned volcanoes — eased some of her woes. “It put me in a better place. Spending all that time outdoors gives me a lot of peace. To know my scale, to be around landscapes that have been there for a long time before me and will be there a long time after me, that just relaxes me.”

Evans and Taylor-Joy didn’t know each other well before they made the film, which premieres at the Toronto Film Festival on Sept. 6. They’d met once at a party, where they played a game of running charades. (“He takes that shit seriously, which I, as an Aries, connect with,” Taylor-Joy says with a laugh. Evans concurs: “I’m a huge fan of games.”) Then, around the time both were approached with the “Sacrifice” script, they kept bumping into each other at Hollywood events. Evans thought, “Maybe there’s something more to the fact that we keep crossing paths; maybe this is fate.”

The actors quickly signed on to star in and executive produce the project — an independent production from Iconoclast, Mid March Media, Film 4 and Heretic — working with the filmmakers to refine the story, where fate — or rather, faith — is the central tenet.

Evans, whose filmography is packed with superhero films, was eager, not anxious, to take on a role that hit closer to home. “What resonated with me was that he wasn’t an actor grappling with his industry,” Evans says of being an action star playing an action star. “He was an actor who, at face value, was doing really well. But when something unexpected happened – his father dying — it threw his sense of stability into a tailspin, and all of a sudden he became unrecognizable to himself.” It’s Taylor-Joy’s Joan — a fierce radical leader, operating with childlike faith — who rattles him awake. “The second she comes crashing in, it felt like Joan was an allegorical representation of Mike’s soul. When your soul breaks through the noise to save you. It’s captivating.”

It’s a profound story wrapped in visually explosive pop packaging. The action takes place amid a star-studded gala at an environmental summit hosted by a pragmatically cold billionaire (Vincent Cassel) and his glamorous wife (Salma Hayek Pinault). Rounding out the ensemble are Sam Richardson as Mike’s agent, John Malkovich as Joan’s father, Jonatan “Yung Lean” Leandoer as Joan’s brother, plus Charli XCX and Ambika Mod, who perform a climate change anthem (as “Mother Nature” and “Daughter Nature”) that gets violently interrupted by the radical group.

“There’s this yin and yang of drama and comedy in every scene, which is pretty reflective of life,” Evans says of walking the line between allegory and absurdism.

The actor sees “Sacrifice” as a Rorschach test, with its complex themes revealing more about the audience’s psyche than the filmmakers’ intentions. “That’s the beauty of it. It’s one of those films that hopefully people take away different meanings,” he says. In Evans’ mind, it’s an allegory about the death of ego.

“The volcano represents transformation,” he says. “Surrender. It’s peace. It’s freedom. It’s realizing that true liberation doesn’t come from money or power or even control; it comes from letting go of the things that we think define us.”

Like Taylor-Joy, Evans felt changed after the shoot. “Sometimes you make movies that really speak to your soul,” he says. (“And sometimes you don’t,” he quips, interrupting his own thought.) But “Sacrifice” was exceptional: “We got to throw ourselves into this project that actually demanded a lot of us every day, and it ended up with a product that I’m deeply, deeply proud of, and a role that I deeply connect with.”