The Avengers film, as iconic and beloved as it is, could have easily fallen through if the casting choices of the main six Avengers had not been as good as it was. It seemed that every actor that was picked to play a particular role fit perfectly as the character that they were playing. The most accurate example of this is Chris Evans in the role of the remarkably brave Steve Rogers, who portrayed this character most flawlessly over his many years in the franchise.
Recently, in a recent book by people close to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, mentions of many behind-the-screen details about the massively successful franchise have surfaced. Amongst these is an interesting detail about the casting of the character of Captain America and how it concerned Kevin Feige so much that he thought that the entire franchise and the film that they were building up to The Avengers, would completely fall through.
Chris Evans Did Not Want To Play Captain America
Though Chris Evans has starred in many different roles over the course of his lengthy career, the most notable and the one that helped him get where he is today has to be his time as Captain America in the MCU. The franchise allowed him to portray the role of one of the most beloved and iconic characters to this date who has one of the most interesting character progresions and storylines of all time. Knowing this, it is quite interesting and odd to find out that the actor, initially, wasn’t all too excited to play this role and even rejected it.
“He was American. We’ve cast a lot of Brits, but we wanted to cast an American. And a great actor and funny and charming and affable and all of that. But then beyond the obvious qualities, I think there were the other ones that were a little harder to discern: his humility, the sense that he had a moral compass, that he was very relatable. He has this vulnerability as well as strength, so we could take him from skinny Steve to Captain America.”
This was quite a big hurdle for the studio as he was the perfect person to cast for the role and this had a lot to do with his previous appearance in the MCU in The Fantastic Four film as the Human Torch. Sarah Haylle Finn revealed in the book MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios that he was perfect for many reasons, stating that he embodies some of the biggest aspects of the character of Steve Rogers, including his humility, and his moral compass.
Oddly enough, another aspect on this list was the fact that Evans was American, as they had ended up casting a lot of English actors in roles of American characters
Kevin Feige Thought That The Avengers Was Over
Despite how good he was for this role, Chris Evans ended up rejecting this role. Other than Marvel Studios itself, there was one specific person that took this especially hard, that being, Kevin Feige. In MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studio, it was revealed that the now president of Marvel Studios was extremely concerned because they were unable to find anyone for the role of Captain America who would be as good as Evans was.
“Casting Captain America was super hard and it took a long time,” Feige said. “I started to think, ‘Are we not going to be able to find Captain America, and if we can’t get Captain America, what are we going to do with Avengers? Is the whole thing going to fall apart?’ “
Feige revealed that he was extremely concerned that if they would not be able to find the right person for this role, who was supposed to be the leader in The Avengers film, they would be unable to do this film justice, He confessed that he was genuinely concerned that the entire franchise would fall through if they were unable to find the right person for this extremely important character. Thankfully, Evans ended up changing his mind and delivered one of the most iconic characters of all time.
