Two Marvel Stars Almost Played Captain America Before Finding Their True Roles Instead

Casting decisions in superhero movies have a funny way of shaping entire franchises, and few examples illustrate that better than the search for the actor who would become Captain America. Before Chris Evans ever put on the star-spangled suit, Marvel Studios cycled through a surprisingly deep pool of contenders who each brought something different to the audition room.

That search reportedly came down to the wire more than once, with casting director Sarah Halley Finn testing actors across wildly different corners of Hollywood before settling on Evans. Two of those hopefuls ended up becoming recognizable MCU faces anyway, just not in the way either of them originally auditioned for.

According to casting insight shared on The Brandon Davis Show, both Wilson Bethel and Chris Pratt tried out for the role of Steve Rogers, and neither one landed it. Bethel reportedly came remarkably close, going through multiple rounds of screen testing and even trying on the suit before the part ultimately went to Evans.

Bethel has previously described just how far that process went, revealing he met with ‘Captain America: The First Avenger‘ director Joe Johnston, reviewed storyboards for the film, and genuinely believed he was on track to land the role. He’s called losing the part one of the hardest moments of his career, even as everything eventually worked out through a different Marvel property entirely.

Rather than Captain America, Bethel found his way into the franchise years later as Bullseye in Netflix’s ‘Daredevil’, delivering a performance widely praised for its unsettling intensity opposite Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin. That role has only grown in stature since ‘Daredevil’ was folded into official MCU canon, giving Bethel’s original near-miss a strange kind of full-circle payoff.

Pratt’s path followed a similarly unexpected trajectory. At the time of his Captain America audition, he was still best known for playing the goofy, lovable Andy Dwyer on ‘Parks and Recreation,’ a role that made him an unlikely candidate for Marvel’s most patriotic hero on paper.

Even though Pratt didn’t get the part, his reading left a strong enough impression on Finn that she remembered him when a very different role came calling. “After that, I was paying attention,” Finn said, recalling how the audition set the stage for what would eventually become one of the MCU’s most successful casting gambles.

That attention paid off when Finn later pushed to get Pratt in a room with director James Gunn for ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ despite Gunn’s initial doubts about the fit. “I was stuck on him,” Finn explained, describing how persistent she had to be to convince Gunn that Pratt belonged in the role of Peter Quill.

That persistence turned into one of the more surprising success stories in modern blockbuster casting, with Pratt going on to headline three ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ films and multiple ‘Avengers’ entries as Star-Lord. It’s a reminder that Marvel’s casting process has never been as straightforward as fans might assume, with actors frequently crossing paths through auditions that don’t pan out the way anyone expects.

Bethel and Pratt weren’t the only notable names in that particular casting pool either, with actors like John Krasinski and Wyatt Russell also auditioning for Cap before finding other homes within the franchise. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine either Bethel or Pratt in Evans’s boots, if only because their eventual roles feel so perfectly suited to who they turned out to be on screen.

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