The Green Lantern Secret That Gave Ryan Reynolds the Edge Over Bradley Cooper

As it is with many superhero movies these days, the race to cast the title role in Green Lantern was a very public one. Though Ryan Reynolds eventually won the part, Bradley Cooper, Justin Timberlake, and Jared Leto were among the finalists whose names found their way to the press. Today at a press conference at Comic-Con, Reynolds shared the tidbit that he thinks clinched it for him over his competition.

Both Reynolds and producer Donald De Line admitted that the finalists had to endure two separate screen tests, and there was one important stipulation. "We found out that [the studio executives] always want to see the guy in the mask," said De Line, "and Ryan looks really good in the mask."

"There was a Cinderella element to it," admitted Reynolds, laughing. "We have these things on our industry called a lifecast, and it's a mold of an actor's head and you can build a prosthetic around that. You can do anything with that, and obviously, Peter [Sarsgaard] did one for his prosthetics in the film.

"The effects house that was asked to make the Green Lantern mask had no idea who was auditioning, but they arbitrarily chose my head from the vast catalogue of actors' heads to build the mask around. When I showed up to the set [for a screen test], my mask fit a little bit better than [it did in], maybe, Regis Philbin's or Richard Chamberlain's audition."

I think I'm on to you, Mr. Reynolds. Is Justin the Regis and Bradley the Richard Chamberlain?