Chris Evans Reacts to Learning Jeremy Strong Almost Played His Scrawny Body Double For Pre-Captain America Steve Rogers

We were first introduced to Chris Evans as Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger. It included the super-hero’s backstory as a sickly, small young man who desperately wanted to join the army, and was taken in by a doctor who saw the potential in using him as a test subject for the experimental super soldier serum. We had to see the scrawny version of Steve Rogers before he becomes what Evans brought to the table to see the immense transformation, and it turns out we are familiar with the actor who almost got the role of tiny Steve Rogers.

Actor Jeremy Strong (The Trial of the Chicago Seven, Succession, Armageddon Time) recently told The Times UK:

“They told me there was a top-secret film about Captain America. They needed someone to play Captain America’s young body, before he turns into a superhero. They said they needed a transformational actor and would use CGI to put the actual actor’s face and voice over my own.”

Strong said he “was broke” and “needed money,” so he “considered” playing Steve Rogers’ body. The Emmy winner ultimately decided against the role. The offer, combined with a strange audition for Cowboys & Aliens, in which Strong showed up in full cowboy attire, but everyone else auditioning were “guys in T-shirts who looked like models,” led Strong to abandon Hollywood and return to New York City to pursue acting.

Strong went on to say:

“That’s my story of LA. It was just never going to happen for me here. 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.”

It turns out Chris Evans had no idea that Strong was offered to play his body in Captain America: The First Avenger. The two actors grew up together in Sudbury, Massachusetts. The Times UK called up Evans to inform him, to which Evans reportedly “gasped.”

“Oh no!” Evans told the publication. “It just goes to show the industry is so unpredictable. But I’m so happy things worked out, because I don’t think there was ever plan B for Jeremy.”

via: Variety