Chris Evans and Dwayne Johnson are offering some advice for PEOPLE’s next Sexiest Man Alive!
In an exclusive chat with PEOPLE while promoting their new film Red One in Berlin, Evans, 43, and Johnson, 52, shared some helpful (and cheeky!) tips for this year’s SMA as former hunky title holders.
“Good luck following us!” Johnson, who received the honor in 2016, quips.
“Yeah, just wrap it up,” jokes Evans, who topped the list in 2022. “You know what I mean, you’re only ever going to be second.”
Eight years after becoming PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive, Johnson says isn’t letting the honor go. “This is in perpetuity. We just never give up the title,” he grins.
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More seriously, the action star’s advice for the next title winner is to “have fun,” adding, “— And you’re lucky.”
Evans tells PEOPLE that the key is to enjoy the experience and “live it up.”
“It all goes by too quick,” he says. “You’re going to wake up one day and you’re just going to have these crow’s feet that are just there permanently. Man, it’s all downhill after PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive. That’s what I’ve learned.”
“That’s it. They’re going to wake up and go, ‘They chose him?’ ” cracks Johnson.
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Back when Evans was crowned Sexiest Man Alive in 2022, he told PEOPLE his mom “will be so happy” at the news, but admitted being deemed sexy was “tough to be interviewed about. It feels like a weird form of humble bragging.”
The actor, who married actress Alba Baptista last year, noted in 2022 that the honor came at a pivotal time in his life as he slowed down in his career and switched focus on pursuing marriage and fatherhood.
“I’m too old to be living out of a suitcase for six months and I’ve settled into a nicer phase where I’m just happy being at home,” said Evans. He added that having a family is “absolutely something I want.”
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Johnson, meanwhile, called being named Sexiest Man Alive in 2016 a “full-circle moment” while speaking in PEOPLE’s 50th anniversary issue in April.
After shooting the reveal in Hawaii, where the actor spent his teen years, he shared how he was reminded of how far he’d come.
“I was kicked off the island, we were evicted as a family, because we couldn’t pay the rent,” recalled Johnson. “So years later, to be able to go back to Hawaii and shoot Sexiest Man Alive? George Clooney, Patrick Swayze and then, years later, this big, bald, brown, tattooed guy? Thank you.”
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Red One follows an E.L.F. Task Force Commander partnering with a bounty hunter to save Christmas. Johnson stars as Callum Drift, opposite Evans as Jack O’Malley.
“After Santa Claus (J. K. Simmons) — Code Name: RED ONE — is kidnapped, the North Pole’s Head of Security (Johnson) must team up with the world’s most infamous bounty hunter (Evans) in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas,” reads an official synopsis.
Red One is in theaters Nov. 15.
