While endorsing his recent film, Upside Down, Jim Sturgess furthermore discussed his screen test and audition process for the lead role in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy film. Despite losing the Peter Quill / Star-Lord part to Zero Dark Thirty star Chris Pratt, Sturgess told The Huffington Post:
“They’re not films that I would go and see particularly but I really started to get intrigued by it. I went to the audition and I was called back for another audition and I had a screen test and another screen test. I think I got down to the last two people. It was fun. Again, I was really, really, really excited about the idea of making a film that other people were really, really excited about seeing. I was amazed instantly by the fact that our names got put out there as a group of actors that had gone out for it and everybody was writing about it and excited about it.”
Even though Guardians of the Galaxy has been dubbed a Big Space Epic expansion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for quite some time, Jim Sturgess wasn’t fully aware upon auditioning. However, further down the casting process, he deemed the James Gunn-directed adaptation’s main idea.
“Then I discovered more and more about the story and it felt like more of a Star Wars than it does Spider-Man. You don’t actually get to know that much about the project. It’s all under lock and key which is crazy but obviously, it’s based on a comic. What I realized is it’s not rooted in reality. It’s up in space and the character was a space pirate of some sort so it was much more in the vein of Han Solo rather than just dressing up in a tight fitting suit. I guess your competitive nature starts kicking in. When you go for the first audition you think, ‘This is a bit of fun.’ Then you get further & further down the line & then you think, ‘Shit, maybe I really want to do this.’”
In other related micro news, actor Nick Offerman recently mentioned Guardians of the Galaxy on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno while embellishing his longtime friend and Parks and Recreation co-star Chris Pratt as a true superhuman being. Anyhow, filming starts at the end of June.
Marvel Studios presents “Guardians of the Galaxy”—A big space epic featuring an unlikely cast of Marvel characters, including Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, Groot and Rocket Raccoon, who must team up in order to defeat a cosmic force of epic proportions. Starring Chris Pratt & Dave Bautista & directed by James Gunn from a screenplay by James Gunn, “Guardians of the Galaxy” is based on the Marvel comic book series “Guardians of the Galaxy,” first published in 1969 and revived in 2008. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures will distribute “Guardians of the Galaxy” on August 1, 2014. In addition, Marvel Studios will release a slate of films based on other iconic Marvel characters including “Iron Man 3” on May 3, 2013; “Thor: The Dark World ” on November 8, 2013; “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” on April 4, 2014; the sequel to “Marvel's The Avengers” on May 1, 2015; and “Ant-Man” on November 6, 2015!