Gilgun and Negga are perfectly cast in their Preacher roles, but the one thing the show had to get exactly right to be a success was Jesse Custer. James Marsden, who previously played Cyclops in the X-Men films, was on board for a while when the show was in development at HBO. A good actor, but a bit too pretty, too clean-cut for Jesse. The news that Dominic Cooper would be taking the lead for the AMC series, then, was met with a sigh of relief. Despite beginning his career in the impeccably English The History Boys (both the film and original stage production), hes since proven he can play a hugely diverse range of characters with a hugely diverse range of accents. Iraqi in The Devils Double, American as Tony Starks dead dad Howard in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the spin-off Agent Carter TV series...Cooper has the skill, has the experience in both drama and action, and most importantly has the look of Jesse from the comics. Well, nobodys quite as ugly as the people Steve Dillon draws, but still. The real test, of course, will be how he looks in that dog collar. And how good his Southern accent is. Hopefully itll be more Tom Hardy in Lawless than Foghorn Leghorn from the Looney Tunes...
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
