Guardians of the Galaxy Star Chris Pratt Once Auditioned to Play Captain America

For the past five years or so, Chris Pratt has been entertaining audiences as Star-Lord in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. Prior to that, however, the Parks and Rec alum was up for a much more different role. With the arrival of Disney+ earlier today, Marvel Studios unveiled a whole slate of extra content from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including a featurette focusing on Sarah Finn, the casting director for Marvel Studios. It was in this featurette Finn revealed she was first alerted to Pratt’s talents when he auditioned for Steve Rogers — the walking legend himself, Captain America. As you can tell by the end result, Pratt didn’t end up being cast as Cap, but at least it got him on Finn’s radar for when Guardians of the Galaxy came around.

Pratt’s Guardians audition wasn’t a walk in the park either as filmmaker James Gunn didn’t even want to see the actor audition at first, before being convinced otherwise by Finn. “James Gunn has been very generous about this in saying that I, to the point of annoying him, kept insisting that Chris Pratt was the guy for the part, but Chris didn’t want to play the part and refused to audition,” Finn said on the red carpet for Avengers: Endgame.

She added, “I finally got him to audition and James Gunn said he didn’t want to see him and that really was a challenge. I was really happy when I finally got them together and it was honestly one of those eureka moments that we talk about in casting when it absolutely feels right and you know it’s right. James turned to me within ten seconds and said ‘He’s the guy.’”

Pratt can be seen in Avengers: Endgame, now streaming on Disney+ and you can see Finn’s featurette under the “Extras” tab on the Endgame page.

Upcoming Marvel Studios projects include Black Widow on May 1, 2020, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in Fall of 2020, The Eternals on November 6, 2020, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on February 12, 2021, WandaVision in Spring 2021, Loki in Spring 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 7, 2021, Spider-Man 3 on July 16, 2021, What If…? in Summer 2021, Hawkeye in Fall 2021, Thor: Love and Thunder on November 5, 2021, and Black Panther 2 on May 6, 2022.