Trivia / Captain America: The First Avenger

• Actor-Shared Background: Neal McDonough was not only from an Irish family who migrated to America, but he was also born in Boston, Massachusetts; just like Dum Dum Dugan himself!
• Awesome, Dear Boy:
  • The biggest reason why Stanley Tucci took the role of Abraham Erskine was because he'd never had a role that required a German accent, and he wanted to try his out.
  • Although Hugo Weaving's Money, Dear Boy attitude towards the movie is pretty much well-known, in 2016, he has more positive opinion about his experience with Marvel.
    Hugo Weaving: "It was fun to play; I enjoyed the outrageousness of the German accent that I employed and I enjoyed the extraordinary mask and costume, even though it was unbelievably hot inside it. I enjoy mask work; I enjoy trying to animate masks and reveal certain things that the mask itself might not reveal. V for Vendetta was another example of that, but there was less animation within that mask versus the Red Skull. With Marvel, it's pretty basic stuff: accept the deal and enjoy the ride. It’s not a major stretch for an actor, but on the other hand the difficulty with the Marvel universe is maintaining a link to a human dimension within such an extraordinary, technological CGI universe. In terms of me going back and doing another one, I don't know. I'm not sure what they're up to with the Red Skull."
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• Completely Different Title: In Poland, the movie is called Captain America: First Clash.
• Deleted Scene: See here.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Chris Evans got ripped for the role and dyed his hair golden blonde (he's a natural brunette).
• Fake American:
  • Englishman Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark, American playboy and captain of industry.
  • Romanian-born Sebastian Stan as American Bucky Barnes.
  • English Natalie Dormer as the American soldier who kisses the Captain. Although, amusingly, her only scene is set in England.
  • English Jenna Coleman as one of the girls Steve and Bucky go on a double date with.
  • English Lex Shrapnel as the American soldier Gilmore Hodge.
  • English Laura Haddock as Captain America fangirl, who is most likely an American. Later retconned to be Peter Quill's maternal grandmother, who is definitely an American.
• Fake Nationality:
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  • Australian Hugo Weaving, American Stanley Tucci, and Englishmen Toby Jones and Richard Armitage play Germans. Well, three of them played Germans; the sequel revealed that Zola was Swiss.
  • Englishman David Bradley as the Norwegian keeper of the Cosmic Cube.
  • Korean American Kenneth Choi as Japanese American Jim Morita.
• I Knew It!: As confirmed by the sequel, Bucky survives and becomes the Winter Soldier.
  • Over a dozen movies later, we learn that the Red Skull didn't die when he was seemingly disintegrated, as many fans suspected. Turns out he was actually transported to a distant planet and transformed into the guardian of the Soul Stone.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Steve mentions he's not much of a dancer but Chris Evans trained in ballet and credits it for developing his strong core and allowing him to take on such a physical role.
• Market-Based Title: Some markets simply called the film First Avenger out of fears that anti-American sentiment might keep audiences away if they kept "Captain America" in the title.
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• Money, Dear Boy: Hugo Weaving has gone on record stating that he is indifferent to the film and has very little interest in reprising his role as the Red Skull, due to the difficulty of the makeup process involved. Even though his attitude towards it has changed, Weaving declined to come back for Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame due to monetary concerns.
• Name's the Same: Schmidt (German for "Smith") seems to be a common name for Nazi scientists with special powers in Marvel comic movies. Which is probably why he goes by Sebastian Shaw now.
• The Other Darrin: Howard Stark was portrayed by Gerard Sanders in still photos, John Slattery in archive footage and Dominic Cooper in life. Justified as all three depictions are from different time periods — the still photos are from around Tony Stark's pre-teens and beyond, the archive footage from his childhood, and in real life it's the '40s long before he's even born, so Howard ages significantly between each depiction. Slattery and Cooper have continued to portray the character in subsequent MCU works depending on what the time period depicted is.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Chris Evans—usually the Deadpan Snarker, Handsome Lech and Jerkass—as Captain America.
  • David Bradley, one of Hollywood's go-to Evil Old Folks, has a small role as the unsuccessful keeper of the Tesseract.
• Real-Life Relative: Eduardo Tejedo, Zola's Mexican Spanish VA, is the father of Ricardo Tejedo, who is the director of that dub.
• Reality Subtext:
  • Cap's early career mirrors how Captain America started as a propaganda piece, and early issues of the comic are made in-universe to help this. In fact, Golden Age comics like Captain America were used to promote and sell war bonds. Hence the Superman cover asking readers to buy one to "slap a Jap."
  • His poor reception with the troops is the same as several 1940s actors who got out of the draft because they were making morale-raising war movies.
• Saved from Development Hell: The film languished in development hell as far back as 1997. In May 2000, Marvel teamed with Artisan Entertainment to help finance the film. However, a lawsuit arose between Marvel Comics and Joe Simon over the ownership of Captain America copyrights, disrupting the development process of the film. The lawsuit was eventually settled in September 2003. The rights were later acquired by Marvel in 2005 who were planning to independently produce several films with Paramount Pictures distributing, and the film finally saw release on July 22, 2011.
• Scully Box: For some scenes, Chris Evans knelt down on boxes to get the height and eyeline correct for pre-serum Steve.
• Star-Making Role: For Hayley Atwell, Dominic Cooper and Sebastian Stan - though Cooper already had some prominence through his role in Mamma Mia!. Additionally, while Chris Evans did get noticed after Fantastic Four (2005), this film is what really launched him to stardom.
• Throw It In: When Peggy tries to touch the newly enhanced Steve. Hayley Atwell was actually Distracted by the Sexy.
• Uncredited Role: Joss Whedon did an uncredited rewrite.
• Underage Casting: Stanley Tucci was in his early fifties while playing a character who's supposedly in his seventies.
• What Could Have Been:
  • John Krasinski was the first choice for the role of Steve Rogers before Chris Evans was cast. However, despite him screen-testing in the actual Captain America suit, Krasinski immediately declared "I am NOT Captain America" after seeing Chris Hemsworth walk by in his muscular Thor body. Krasinski would eventually go on to play a variant of Reed Richards in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
    • Garrett Hedlund, Channing Tatum, Scott Porter, Mike Vogel, Chace Crawford, Michael Cassidy, Johnny Pacar, Patrick Flueger, Derek Theler, Wilson Bethel, and Chad Michael Murray were also considered for the part of Captain America. Bethel would later go on to portray Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter in Daredevil, while Murray would star as Jack Thompson in Agent Carter.
    • Ryan Phillippe, Scott Eastwood, Kellan Lutz, Ryan McPartlin, Alexander Skarsgård, Sebastian Stan, Chris Pratt, and Wyatt Russell screen-tested for the titular role as well before the casting of Evans. Stan, Pratt, and Russell would eventually go on to play Bucky Barnes, Peter Quill, and John Walker respectively in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  • Emily Blunt was initially offered the role of Peggy Carter before Hayley Atwell was cast. Blunt was previously approached for Natasha Romanoff in Iron Man 2, and her husband, John Krasinski, was the first candidate to portray Steve Rogers.
    • Alice Eve, Gemma Arterton, Rosamund Pike, and Keira Knightley were considered for the part of Peggy Carter as well before the casting of Atwell. Eve would later go on to play Mary Walker in Iron Fist.
  • Stephen Ford auditioned for the role of Bucky Barnes before the casting of Sebastian Stan. Ford would later go to write for WandaVision.
  • Jeff Goldblum was approached for a cameo as the senator who gets Steve involved in the USO, but it didn't work out. Goldblum would eventually portray the Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnarok in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  • Scarlett Johansson was rumored to appear as Natasha Romanoff. It would have been most likely that her role would have been Amanda Righetti's role as the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent pretending to be Steve's nurse at the end of the movie.
  • Matt Salinger, the star of Captain America, wrote to the director over a possible cameo. After a lukewarm reply, Salinger didn't push the offer any further and nothing more came of it.
  • Chris Evans turned down the offer to play Captain America several times; not out of dislike for the role, but because he feared what the effects of the sudden increase of fame would be on his private life. Then Robert Downey Jr. convinced him to take the part and thus gain the freedom to sign on any other role he'd want to after, and the rest is history.
  • Up until a very late stage in pre-production, HYDRA would have been a blatantly Nazi paramilitary organization, with swastikas on their uniform. The implication is still present in the final version, however, with Schmidt being portrayed with a swastika arm-band when threatening Erskine in a flashback. In addition, deleted scenes also had HYDRA explicitly attacking Nazis in addition to Allied powers.
  • Early drafts of the script featured Baron Zemo and Baron Strucker working alongside the Red Skull. They ended up being cut because Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely felt the characters would've been "wasted" in mere supporting roles. Red Skull wound up filling their roles, while Strucker wound up appearing in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron while Zemo debuted in Captain America: Civil War (albeit as Helmut Zemo, revamped to have no ties to HYDRA while still evil, rather than his father Heinrich, reduced to a Posthumous Character).
  • Wolverine and Magneto were originally planned to have cameos (the former as a soldier and the latter in an internment camp), but it fell through due to copyright issues.
  • Captain America's shield initially had a very different design than in the final movie, but it was canned due to Stephen Broussard and Kevin Feige believing that it looked far too cartoonish.

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