12 Actors You Won't Believe Almost Played Iconic Comic Book Characters

John Krasinski has a very American, clean cut face, and was a natural choice to be Captain America. Krasinski wowed in his audition, even getting as far as a costume test, but then took himself out of the race, feeling he was wrong for the part.

Had he been in, Cap might have been funnier, which wouldn’t really have worked.

Chris Evans was initially left off the shortlist entirely, having recently starred as the Human Torch in the two Fantastic Four movies. Though his performance was one of the better ones, Marvel still felt such a casting would have been confusing.

In the end, though, they allowed Evans to read for it, and he ended up becoming a huge part of the MCU. Marvel would later repeat the trick with casting a Human Torch actor when Michael B. Jordan won the part of Erik Killmonger in Black Panther.

Krasinski’s wife Emily Blunt was in the running for Black Widow too, which might have made Cap’s nervousness around Natasha in The Winter Soldier harder to sell. The pair are allegedly being lined up as Reed Richards and Sue Storm, which might be a better use of their talents and chemistry anyway.