Things You Didn't Know About The Avengers Cast

After smashing into the MCU in Guardians of the Galaxy as Star-Lord, Chris Pratt solidified himself as a future Avenger. Before that could happen, though, he stole his costume. Now, modern superhero costumes are incredibly expensive, and can require hundreds of thousands of dollars to make, so stealing a costume is a pretty big deal. But the actor had an amazing reason for taking it. 

Pratt explained his decision in an interview with Panzer TV:

I stole the jacket and some of the wardrobe so that, if this movie comes out and does what everyone hopes it can, I can follow the example of someone - say, like, a Russell Wilson - and go visit kids. If it was a big enough movie to where it would mean something to a kid who’s sick in the hospital for Peter Quill or Star-Lord to come visit them, I’ll do that. I think that’s awesome, man. That would give me real meaning for this movie, you know?

Pratt concluded his story by saying, "Right now, it means high profile, cool jobs coming up, big press tour, and all the excitement of it all. But none of that really means anything. The coolest things would be that my son can one day see this, and that maybe I can go affect some kids in a positive way; be a good role model for them."

Back in 2001, Mark Ruffalo had a vivid dream about a brain tumor that turned out to be true - he had a golfball-sized mass behind his left ear. He was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma (a brain tumor that affected his hearing). Fortunately, it was benign, but his recovery was incredibly difficult. 

The surgery to remove it was risky, and he fought for 10 months, dealing with the paralysis of his facial nerves. This messed with his balance, and he couldn't move the left part of his face, but he just followed his mantra, "Keep moving," and he powered his way through. Still, it was incredibly difficult for him and his family.

"Recovery really tested what I was made of as a man. It also became a blessing in disguise, as time progressed," he explained.

It seems superheroism isn't such a farfetched idea for Benedict Cumberbatch, according to a story featured in The Sun. According to Uber driver Manuel Dias, when Cumberbatch was his passenger, they noticed four men jumping a cyclist. As Dias explained, Cumberbatch jumped out of the car and rescued the guy:

I went to turn down into Marylebone High Street, and we saw four guys were pushing around a Deliveroo cyclist. My passenger jumped out, ran over, and pulled the men away. They turned towards him, and things looked like they were getting worse, so I joined in. He stood there instructing them in the street, shouting, "Leave him alone."

Dias concluded his story by saying, "The cyclist was lucky; Benedict's a superhero. Benedict was courageous, brave, and selfless. If he hadn't stepped in, the cyclist could have been seriously injured."

When the first Avengers film begins, Stark is building Stark Tower in New York. By the end of the movie, the damaged building only retains one letter from the hero's name: "A." You'd be forgiven for thinking that was a CGI letter, as there really wasn't a need to create a practical effect, but that's what they did.

In an interview with BBC Radio 1, Downey revealed the fate of that letter: "On the last Avengers, there's this scene where there's this 'A' which is probably 30 feet tall, and I'm looking at it, and we're shooting in England, and I go, 'I need that in my office in Venice.'"

Marvel ended up giving the star the giant letter as a gift, but it took a couple of years to get the massive object over to Venice. He concluded the story by saying, "So now we have a massive Avengers 'A' that will be prominently placed."

Scarlett Johansson was pregnant while filming Avengers: Age of Ultron, so the crew got to work making sure they could hide the pregnancy. Amazingly, they didn't need to trim any scenes, and that was largely due to the work of three stuntwomen who worked on the film. After all, pregnancies may be hidden easily enough on a sitcom, but this was an action movie.

Director Joss Whedon explained the situation in an interview with Entertainment Weekly: "She's not going to spend the whole movie carrying groceries. We didn't trim any scenes. We're like, 'We'll make it work.'"

The stuntwomen wore dotted maps on their faces, so the VFX artists could digitally map Johansson's face onto theirs. It was all done in post-production, and nobody watching the movie could tell. Chris Evans joked about how much the women looked like the actress, saying, "It's always funny. You walk by, 'Hey, Scarlett - oh, weird. You're not Scarlett at all. Sorry.' A lot of fake Scarletts around."

You might think that Vin Diesel walked into a recording booth and simply said, "I am Groot," over and over again to get enough takes for each of his appearances as Groot in the MCU, but that's not at all what happened. James Gunn had a special script made just for him, so he would know what Groot was saying. This helped him with the proper inflection and tone, which made the repeated phrase sound different each and every time.

Gunn mentioned the script in a Facebook post on Diesel's page, saying, "This is the special Groot version of the script that only Vin Diesel and I have, where every Groot line is printed in English instead of Groot, so Vin will know what the various 'I am Groot's' mean. I love putting this thing together."