Given his notoriously intense dedication to method acting thanks to studying under Daniel Day Lewis, Succession star Jeremy Strong doesn’t seem like the type of guy to pop up in a Marvel movie. However, like most actors he found himself in a position where he was desperate for work, and that almost resulted in Strong playing a surprising role in Captain America: The First Avenger. In fact, he had just lost out on an audition for Cowboys & Aliens, so things were getting tight.
“They needed someone to play Captain America’s young body, before he turns into a superhero,” Strong told The Sunday Times. “They said they needed a transformational actor and would use CGI to put the actual actor’s face and voice over my own.”
Ultimately, he turned the whole thing down and retreated back to the theater world for a more Jeremy Strong-esque role. Via IndieWire:
“But that’s my story of L.A. It was just never going to happen for me here,” Strong continued. “It didn’t feel like what I had to offer was valued. And the next day I went back to New York and did a play about a veteran from Afghanistan in a wheelchair during the blackout of 2003.”
Interestingly, Strong had another connection to the Captain America movies. He went to high school with Chris Evans, who apparently had no idea that Marvel planned to use Strong as a pre-serum Steve Rogers.
“Oh no! It just goes to show the industry is so unpredictable,” Evans told The Times. “But I’m so happy things worked out, because I don’t think there was ever plan B for Jeremy.”
(Via IndieWire)