15+ MCU Characters Who Were Almost Played By A Different Actor

But we hit the jackpot when they were cast for another iconic role instead.

Sophia

• Published in Film & TV
• June 17, 2022

Through the years, we have come to love not only the movies and the characters of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the actors portraying our heroes as well. The set of Marvel actors we have had over the years is a living testament that it always makes a huge difference when characters are well-casted and it's even more special than most of these actors seem to be the real-life embodiments of the heroes that they are playing onscreen.

Take Robert Downey Jr. for example—everyone would agree that he is the perfect Tony Stark because his real-life personality perfectly resembles that of the character! Anyone would have a hard time trying to replace RDJ or imagine some other actor for the role, because he just fits it perfectly well, and effortlessly so.

Another prime example is Tom Holland, who truly is perfect for the role of Spider-Man. He's trained for ballet and gymnastics, and he's even a parkour runner—and with all his skills and talents, there was no doubt that he was cast as our beloved Peter Parker.

But how would you feel if you knew that the Spider-Man role almost ended up being played by another actor; say, Timothée Chalamet? Yep, that's right, Timmy almost landed a place in the MCU!

Take a look at some of our favorite MCU characters who were almost played by a different actor:

1. Sebastian Stan initially auditioned to be Steve Rogers. He was told he wasn't right for the role, but he was offered to play Bucky Barnes instead.

It turned out to be a blessing, and he thought playing Bucky was much better anyway.

2. John Krasinski was tapped to play Steve Rogers before they offered it to Chris Evans.

Krasinski was asked to try on the Captain America costume and Chris Hemsworth happened to pass by, saying, "Ya look good, mate." He then joked that he left the room after seeing how "jacked" Hemsworth was.

3. Jason Momoa was considered for Drax but he turned it down.

"I want my children to see their father happy. It's not that it's not a good role, it just wasn't the right thing. I was on Stargate: Atlantis for four years playing a similar character called Ronon, who was an alien who didn't say much and grunted. I've been there and done that, whether people have seen it or not," he said to IGN.

4. Danny DeVito tried to get the role of Rocket, but James Gunn, the director felt that the character needed a younger-sounding voice.

Gunn said that Danny was "an older man now and Rocket is not an older man, he’s a younger man. And Danny DeVito’s voice just wouldn’t work."

5. DeWanda Wise was almost our Maria Rambeau. But she already had to commit to Netflix's She's Gotta Have It so she dropped the role.

6. Jessica Chastain was offered the roles of Maya Hanse in Iron Man 3 and Dr. Christine Palmer in Doctor Strange. She said that if she wanted to be in a Marvel movie, she wanted to be a hero.

7. Sam Rockwell was once in line for a Tony Stark screen test. Evidently, he did not get the part but he felt that his role as Justin Hammer was his closest chance to be Tony.

"In a way, I think Jon [Favreau] was basically saying, 'This is your chance to be Tony Stark. This will be your version of Tony Stark.' We gave him the glasses and kind of sleazed him up a little. But that’s exactly right. It was a chance to do Tony Stark."

8. Lee Pace was almost cast Peter Quill but the role fell to Chris Pratt. Lee then went on to play Ronan the Accuser.

"I go in on Monday to meet them all and audition for it, so wish me luck...I'm very excited about it. The script is great...I have been [reading up on Star-Lord]. You want to know what you're doing. The character is a lot of fun. I hope it works out. We'll see," he said in an audition back in 2012.

9. Katherine Langford was actually cast as an older version of Morgan, Tony Stark and Pepper in Avengers: Endgame. They ended up removing her scene because the directors felt that it would only confuse viewers.

10. Chadwick Boseman initially tried for the role of Drax the Destroyer in Guardians of the Galaxy.

11. Amandla Stenberg was almost cast as Shuri but had to let it go because they felt the character should fall to a dark-skinned Black actor.

They told CBC, "These are all dark skin actors playing Africans and I feel like it would have just been off to see me as a biracial American with a Nigerian accent just pretending that I'm the same color as everyone else in the movie... That was really challenging, to make that decision, but I have no regrets. I recognize 100% that there are spaces that I should not take up and when I do take up space it's because I've thought really, really critically about it and I've consulted people I really trust and it feels right."

12. Timothée Chalamet was in line for the role of Peter Parker but he apparently got anxious so he blew it off.

“I read twice and I left sweating in a total panic. I called my agent, Brian Swardstrom, and I said, ‘Brian, I thought about this a lot and I have to go back and knock on that door and read again.'"

13. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was considered as M'Baku but Winston Duke was offered the role.

14. Amanda Seyfried refused to be Gamora because she didn't want to be green. She also thought Guardians of the Galaxy wouldn't do well.

"I didn't want to be part of the first Marvel movie that bombed. I said, 'Who wants to see a movie about a talking tree and a raccoon?' Which is clearly — I was very wrong... I remember Jennifer Lawrence talking about once how long it took her to get blue. And I was like, 'That seems like hell on Earth,' because then you get to set and you're only there for a couple hours, and then you have to take everything off. And that was literally the reason."

15. Matthew McConaughey was tapped to be Ego in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 but refuse due to The Dark Tower.

"I like Guardians of the Galaxy, but what I saw was 'It's successful, and now we've got room to make a colorful part for another big-name actor.' I'd feel like an amendment. The Dark Tower script was well written, I like the director and his take on it, and I can be the creator, the author of the Man in Black — aka the Devil — in my version of this Stephen King novel."

16. Emily Blunt almost played Black Widow, but because of conflicts with the movie Gulliver's Travels, she had to let go of the role.

17. Tom Hiddleston originally auditioned for Thor.

He told Jimmy Fallon that he never really auditioned for the part of Loki but got it instead.

18. Saoirse Ronan was almost cast as the Scarlet Witch as she was the "prototype" for the character.

She says that she's still open to joining the MCU someday.

The MCU movies would have certainly been different if the heroes had different actors playing them! We're glad that most of these did not work out, though, because at least we got the perfect set of the cast that has so much oozing chemistry as a group.

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Sophia