Drax the Destroyer
Before landing one of the biggest roles over at DC with Aquaman, Jason Momoa revealed he was in talks to play Drax and even auditioned with Chris Pratt before choosing to walk away.
"It didn't really fit in my time because I've done so many things where I don't say much and I'm colored up and I have my shirt off again," the Games of Thrones star explained to Zap2It. "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. You want to stretch."
Marvel ended up finding their perfect Drax in WWE star Dave Bautista, though he admitted to being "terrified" during the audition process. "Each time I was called back," Bautista told Wired, "it became more nerve-wracking and more real."
Of casting the MMA fighter, Feige said, "One of the reasons Bautista got the part was because his banter and ad-libs and screen tests with Pratt were awesome."
And landing a spot on GOTG's rag-tag team was a dream come true for him, with Bautista telling Hero Complex, "I still can't freaking believe I got this job. It's something that I wanted more than anything I ever wanted in my life. When I got it, I broke down and cried like a little baby."
Hey, to spend five hours in make-up every day, you gotta love what you do!
Nebula
Has there ever been a cooler casting confirmation that Karen Gillan stepping out at Comic-Con in 2013 to debut her shaved head, officially announcing she was joining Guardians of the Galaxy as Nebula, one of the movie's main villains and the sister of Gamora?
Already a genre favorite for her time on Doctor Who, Gillan later told W Magazine, "In the audition for [Guardians of the Galaxy], they asked if I was willing to shave my head, and it sounded like a cool project and I was up for this change. I've always had long red hair that was kind of a defining feature for me."
Originally, Nebula was supposed to die in the first GOTG, with Gillan later telling EW, "I was really shocked when I got to come back and as part of the team in the next movie. That was amazing! I definitely didn't expect that."
Nebula went on to play a crucial role, even surviving her adoptive father Thanos' infamous finger-snap, standing alone with Tony Stark by Infinity War's end.
Mantis
"The most awesome and easiest person I've ever had to cast" is how James Dunn described Pom Klementieff, who joined the franchise in Vol. 2 as Mantis, the new addition to the team that can control others' emotions.
"She blew me away," he continued. "She's amazing, and I can't wait to share her with the world."
And in a statement announcing the casting, Gunn revealed Marvel "auditioned a lot of actresses for that role. We had four actresses screen test and each of them was completely amazing. Pom Klementieff just happened to be the best in terms of being very emotional, which the character has to be. That by her nature is her super power, so to speak. She is an empath."
A huge fan of the first movie, the French actor admitted she was "really freaking out" during her auditions.
Ant-Man/Scott Lang
One of Hollywood's most beloved stars Paul Rudd landed the role of Marvel's pint-sized superhero, much to the Internet's delight, in 2012.
"We felt a huge sense of relief because the first step in creating any Marvel Studios film is finding the right star. We knew early on that we had found the right person in Paul," Feige said. "When he not only agreed to do it but became as enthusiastic as any actor we'd ever met with about doing the work, we knew we'd found the right guy."
Per a Variety report before Rudd's casting was announced, the other actor who was seriously considered for the role was Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
The Wasp/Hope van Dyne
Already a genre fave thanks to her turn as Kate on ABC's Lost and Tauriel in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Evangeline Lilly was tapped to play Hope van Dyne in Ant-Man, delivering the telling line at the film's end: "It's about damn time."
And with 2017's Ant-Man and The Wasp, Lilly became the first woman to headline an MCU movie, with Hope really taking on the lead role as she finally took over the Wasp mantle from her mother.
"There were a lot of girlfriends and wives. And that's typical of what we saw in the original comic books," Lilly told ESPN. "So it's an exciting time for me to be working with Marvel as they give women these mantles in which they are fully realized people."
But Lilly isn't all that interested in a standalone Wasp movie, believing Scott and Hope work as a duo, saying, "So I don't love the idea of breaking them up—except if there was an all-female Avengers film...then I'm in." Ditto!
Rumors prior to Lilly's casting speculated that Emma Stone and Rashida Jones met with Marvel to discuss the role, while Jessica Chastain also allegedly turned down the role due to scheduling conflicts.
Doctor Strange/Dr. Stephen Strange
The Internet nearly had a meltdown when it was first rumored that Benedict Cumberbatch, beloved for his turn as Sherlock Holmes on Sherlock, was the frontrunner to play Doctor Strange, easily Marvel's riskiest standalone yet. Alas, scheduling conflicts initially prevented it from happening. "I really did think I had to kiss it goodbye," Cumberbatch told Empire.
Enter: Joaquin Phoenix, another unusual but prestige choice. But, for whatever reason, nothing ever came of the talks between the Oscar winner and Marvel, with Phoenix later sort of (but not really) explaining, "I enjoy those movies sometimes, and I think they keep the f--king industry going in some ways, so I don't have a problem with it at all...I'm trying to figure out how to say this most diplomatically...I think everybody was really happy with how things turned out." (And maybe Phoenix was a DC Comics fan all along as the star went on to win an Oscar for his take on the Joker in 2020.)
After meeting with a few other people (allegedly including Tom Hardy and Jared Leto), director Scott Derrickson ultimately convinced Marvel to push back filming in order to secure their No. 1 choice for the renowned doctor-turned-sorcerer.
"I thought Benedict was perfect as Doctor Strange, because [he] has the combination of high education and high intelligence. I believe that he can be a top neurosurgeon. He's so smart and also has incredible depth, feelings, and range as an actor," Derrickson told Vanity Fair. "He has to play this arrogant neurosurgeon who goes through this emotional journey. He goes through a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, a lot of disorientation, a lot of anger and then enlightenment. There aren't a lot of actors that I felt could cover all of that, but Benedict can. I felt that he would be a great action star. He has the ability to give the audience emotion even in the middle of an action scene. Harrison Ford is the greatest example of all time. You never get tired of watching his face no matter what he is doing, because you are feeling what he is letting you feel. And Benedict is the same way."
Quicksilver/Pietro Maximoff
Why did director Joss Whedon pursue only Kick-Ass' Aaron Taylor-Johnson for the role of Quicksilver for Age of Ultron?
"He is an old-school movie star. Pietro has always been kind of a dick. Aaron is so beautiful—like sculpture beautiful—that you buy him as somebody who's going to be a little arrogant," Whedon told Buzzfeed. "He's not as a person. He's a dear. He works his ass off. But I knew that he could play that guy."
But it took about a year for Taylor-Johnson to decide whether or not he wanted to join the MCU, explaining, "You've got such a huge cast, what the hell difference is it going to make if I come on the scene? So it was the character and that took about a year of going back and forth about it. It took a while but I'm super happy to be in that one."
One reason he ended up signing on was because his onscreen wife in the Godzilla reboot, Elizabeth Olsen, was set to play Quicksilver's twin sister.
However, expectations were already high for the speedy superhero, thanks to Evan Peters' breakout and beloved turn as the character in X-Men: Days of Future Past, with Whedon admitting he was a fan of the sequence, but "I was never thrilled."
Still, Taylor-Johnson, who is friends with Peters, wasn't too concerned.
"I think the X-Men movies are great. I don't fear things like that. I feel like without Scarlet Witch, you haven't really got Quicksilver," he told Buzzfeed. "We're not just, like, a little moment in this. We have a story. We have a history. Yeah, OK, he's fast as fuck, but who cares? It's just a super power, you know?
And, in a meta twist, Peters made a surprise appearance on Disney+'s WandaVision as a "re-cast" Quicksilver. Talk about a multiverse.
Pepper Potts
Marvel went big for its first leading lady, landing Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow to star opposite Robert Downey Jr.
"Gwyneth is the embodiment of a leading lady. She brings intelligence, poise and an incredible range of talent to this role," Feige said at the time. "We could not be more excited about the great chemistry this illustrious cast will bring to Iron Man."
While Paltrow initially said she'd likely only do the three Iron Man movies, she's went on to appear in several other MCU movies.
"I'd be open to more Pepper because I love working with Robert and it's a great franchise," Paltrow told Empire, Whedon later revealing RDJ fought to add Pepper Potts into The Avengers.
"He really thought Gwyneth would bring something great to the table, and we all thought so as well, but he was the one who convinced her to come and do it," he said.
But Paltrow seems ready to move on from the franchise, recently telling Variety in 2019, "I mean, I'm a bit old to be in a suit and all that at this point. I feel very lucky that I did it, because I actually got talked into it. I was friend with Jon Favreau. It was such a wonderful experience making the first Iron Man and then to watch how important it has become to fans."
Still, she secured a life-long friend in Downey, who delivered a toast at her wedding to Brad Falchuk in September 2018. Pepperony forever!
Peggy Carter
Another Marvel role, another missed opportunity for Emily Blunt to join the MCU.
Producers had eyed The Devil Wears Prada standout for Peggy Carter, Captain America: The First Avenger's female lead, but she later explained to Vulture of Peggy and Black Widow not working out, "It was never the right time, really, and it just didn't work out scheduling-wise with those two. It's always a difficult thing to talk about, because it's not fair to the actresses who ended up playing them, you know? It just wasn't the right time."
While the role easily could've been a generic "girlfriend to the hero" one, relatively unknown Hayley Atwell, then just 22, turned Peggy into a fan-favorite.
"I likened her character to that famous Ginger Rogers quote. She can do everything Captain America can do, but backwards and in high heels," she said. "She's an English soldier through and through, although she always looks fabulous. She might stand there with a machine-gun shooting Nazis, but she's obviously gone to the loo beforehand and applied a bit of lipstick. She doesn't need to be rescued. That's exciting to me: her strength."
In fact, Atwell was so well-received she ended up getting her own TV show, Agent Carter, which ran for two seasons on ABC.
War Machine/Colonel Rhodes
There's no drama quite like MCU recast drama, as we learned with the Hulk. In Iron Man, Terrence Howard played Rhodes, U.S. Air Force officer and Tony Stark's BFF, who eventually becomes War Machine. But by 2010's Iron Man 2, Howard was on the outs with Marvel, leading to Don Cheadle taking over the role.
But Howard, who was the first actor cast in Iron Man (and was reportedly paid more than Downey) did not leave the franchise quietly; during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live, the vocal Empire star blamed RDJ for his exit.
"It turns out that the person that I helped become Iron Man, when it was time to re-up for the second one took the money that was supposed to go to me and pushed me out," Howard alleged. "We did a three-picture deal. So that means, you did the deal ahead of time. It was going to be a certain amount for the first one, a certain amount for the second, certain amount for the third." He then alleged they only offered him a small fraction of what he was originally intended to receive "'because we think the second one will be successful with or without you.' And I called my friend that I helped get the first job, and he didn't call me back for three months."
As for Cheadle, he didn't have a lot of time to make a decision about taking over War Machine's duties, revealing he was only given an hour to decide. "I said, 'An hour? It's like eight movies!'" he said on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
He also revealed that he nearly landed the role right from the beginning, telling MTV News, "I met very early on before the first one with Jon [Favreau] and the team...and I guess there was a split—some people Terrence, some people me."
Thanos
OK, technically, he's the biggest of the MCU's big bads thus far, but in his own mind, Thanos is humanity's savior, right?
While mostly CGI, directors Joe and Anthony Russo eventually sought out Josh Brolin for the role when it came time for Thanos to truly eff s--t up in The Avengers: Infinity War. (Thanos first made his debut in the post-credits scene of The Avengers, with Damion Poitier playing him.)
"He's such an amazing performer and so uniquely suited to Thanos," Anthony Russo said in an interview with The Telegraph. "What we were looking for in the character of Thanos is the strongest, most intimidating figure in the universe. While at the same time we wanted to tell a story about a character with a really complex and empathetic interior life. There are not a lot of actors that can give you both of those things. Josh Brolin is perhaps the best example that you can find where you have somebody who has a physical presence and brings that level of intensity and threat, while at the same time having another layer always at work underneath that, which is a very complex inner life and a lot of emotional depth and texture."
Joe added, "Josh created an incredibly nuanced character who is both frightening and oddly emotional."
When it came to making the decision to play the purple 8-foot-tall "Mad Titan," Brolin told Total Film he had to make a call first: "At the beginning, before I said yes, I called Mark Ruffalo and I said, 'What do you think of this?' He was like, 'It's going to be really uncomfortable in the beginning, and then you see the movie, and you'll just be absolutely blown away by the stuff you were doing.'"