Why did USA Today say that Jensen was on the short list to play Marvel’s Captain America? And they also called Dean Winchester the best superhero on TV. Isn’t that Sam though since the show is about him?
Because apparently USAToday didn’t know what to write about Dean, so they went for Captain America because everybody loves Captain America. USAToday knows damn well that their readers have no idea what “shortlisted” actually means and also know civilians will think Jensen was offered the role and think, wow that guy could have been Captain America, I love Captain America! Instead of wow, Dean sounds like an awesome, cool guy. The paragraph have 10 lines and literally half of it was about Captain America instead of Dean WInchester and name dropping Chris Evans because everybody loves Chris Evans.
(remember when I said that Supernatural was the precursor of today’s superhero shows and movies?)
Sam Winchester paragraph also had 10 lines and and it was all about Sammy, along with a passive aggressive dig at Dean who apparently isn’t a caring person. That’s not true but who cares, that apparently sounds goods to the readers!
Now about the shortlist thing….
For a movie as big as Captain America there would be at least three rounds of shortlisting. In the first round, the director watches the audition video while the assistant sits with the list of names of the actors that have auditioned and makes a shortlist. This is when you have to watch truly terrible acting and cut out the ones that are unsuitable for the roles, like a 35 year old actor who auditioned for a 18 year old. In the second round of shortlisting, each actor’s name will be marked with YES, KEEP FOR NOW, NO, and MAYBE. On the third round of shortlising, the assistant has to line up all the cast basis each character. In the final round of shortlisting, the cast is then given preferences like a particular actor would be the Directors 1st choice followed by the 2nd choice and the rest are usually a backup in case the client does not like the first 2 characters presented. So in any of these rounds you can technically say you were “shortlisted” to play Captain America and we can’t stop them, just like we can’t stop executives from giving out executive producer titles like it’s candies in a crack house.
But the worst pitch I used to get doesn’t even cover that. Actors say they were “shortlisted” to play second lead in a major film and when I asked, “Okay, but shortlisted in what way? Were you submitted for the project by your agent or manager? You auditioned and received callback? You were placed ‘on available’ for the role that Chris Evan is playing?” Half the time the answers I got was they were submitted for the role by their manager and that someone had told them they were shortlisted. *me internally screaming into the void* Nowadays everytime I read so-and-so was shortlisted for a lead role my knee jerk reaction is to say “your agent submitting you for a role is in no way means you were shortlisted you stupid dumb duck”.
USAToday could get away with the technicalities because along with hundreds of actors Jensen could have made it through the first two rounds of shortlisting. During any of these rounds the actors have to tell the casting directors if they are in another job on the same shoot dates or else all hell breaks loose if they don’t. From there anybody can claim “scheduling conflict” was why they didn’t play the lead role.
