Guardians Of The Galaxy: Glenn Howerton Nearly Played Star-Lord

Writer-director James Gunn has revealed the runner-up for Chris Pratt’s role of Peter ‘Star-Lord’ Quill in Marvel’s 'Guardians of the Galaxy' - and fans may be surprised to hear it isn’t Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Gordon-Levitt was the highest profile name linked to the anachronistic earth-man in deep space, whilst other actors said to have tested for the role include Zachary Levi, Michael Rosenbaum, Joel Edgerton, Jack Huston, Jim Sturgess, Eddie Redmayne, and Lee Pace (who was ultimately cast as villain Ronan the Accuser).

However, in a profile on Pratt in GQ, Gunn revealed the actor who came closest to scooping the role from his eventual choice, and it wasn’t any of the aforementioned names.

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Gunn’s second choice, it seems, was Glenn Howerton, best known for his role on TV comedy ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.’

The writer-director tells GQ, “Glenn came along a little bit later, but there was a good chance that, if I didn’t cast Chris, that I would’ve cast Glenn Howerton in the role.”

Howerton’s film credits are relatively few, including ‘Serenity,’ ‘Everything Must Go,’ and the two ‘Crank’ films. His other TV credits include ‘The Mindy Project’ and ‘Fargo.’

On the one hand, Howerton doesn’t seem the likeliest candidate to head up Marvel’s madcap space epic - but then, much the same could have been said of Pratt not so long ago, given that he too was best known for a TV comedy (‘Parks and Recreation’) without many high profile film credits on his CV.

Who knows, maybe there’s a blockbuster leading role somewhere in Howerton’s future - but for now we can chalk this up as another curious ‘what if’ question.

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Picture Credit: Marvel, WENN