John Krasinski Jokes Chris Hemsworth Is the Reason He Never Became Captain America
Sometime next year, Marvel Studios will premiere an animated series called What If … ?, which asks fanciful questions like “What If Peggy Carter took the super-soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers?” For now, it seems like Marvel actors and would-be actors are playing a live-action version of What If…?
Namely, what if John Krasinski almost got to be Captain America but Thor ruined it? There are no hard feelings about Chris Hemsworth being the God of Thunder while Krasinski had to settle for Jack Ryan, but Krasinski razzed Hemsworth for what happened during the audition process.
Chris Hemsworth drops the hammer on John Krasinski
When Marvel Studios was assembling its Avengers in the late 2000s, Krasinski was one of a great many actors who tried their hand at being a hero. The clean-cut Krasinski seemed to be an ideal match for Steve Rogers, particularly when Chris Evans prevaricated about whether to take the part.
Krasinski actually got to try on the star-spangled costume. But the rush of the image was all too brief.
Screen Rant, recapping a recent Krasinski interview with Ellen DeGeneres, detailed what went down. Krasinski said: “I went in and I tested for Captain America. Got to wear the suit. Which was really fun. This is a true story. […] I was putting the suit on, and I was halfway up, not wearing any other clothes other than this. […] And right at that moment, Chris Hemsworth walked by and he was like, ‘you look good, mate.’ And I was like, nope. You know what? It’s fine. We don’t have to do this. […] He was just like, jacked.”
John Krasinski’s wife, Emily Blunt, almost got to be in the MCU
What makes this anecdote all the more amusing is that fans have been trying to fantasy-cast Krasinski and his wife Emily Blunt in the MCU, with the real-life couple playing fictional couple Reed Richards and Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four. Whether that will actually happen is any Reddit user’s guess, but Blunt had her own brush with the MCU.
Although it’s hard to picture anyone but Scarlett Johansson in the part, she was actually not the first choice to play the deadly assassin Natasha Romanoff. Blunt had been the first choice of Jon Favreau, who was directing Iron Man 2, where Black Widow first appeared.
Favreau’s instincts were usually pretty good, considering he went to bat for Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man when the studio was uncertain. But Blunt ended up declining the part.
According to Looper, Blunt ended up not being able to commit because of scheduling conflicts with Gulliver’s Travels, which few people seem to remember fondly. While that seems regrettable in hindsight, Blunt told Vulture it seemed like the right move because such parts tend to be thankless.
Johansson proved it didn’t have to be, but Blunt has had solid action roles in the likes of The Edge of Tomorrow and Rian Johnson’s Looper. And she gets to do it for Disney with July’s Jungle Cruise with Dwayne Johnson.
What is John Krasinksi up to now?
For now, Krasinski is preparing to promote his new movie, the sequel to A Quiet Place. The follow-up is due out March 20.
The first movie, about a family trying to elude aliens who are hypersensitive to sound, was a huge hit. The 2018 film was so effective that it got normally noisy theater audiences to fall silent.
Much of the success was attributed to Krasinski’s imaginative direction and screenplay.
The new film is kind of a prequel and a sequel, with the new movie showing how the alien invasion started, while also telling the story of how Blunt and her family cope with the aftermath of the first movie. This much is certain. It’s a movie where it would not be good for the boisterous Hemsworth to be around.
