Actress Jessica Chastain turned down the chance to play Dr. Christine Palmer in the Benedict Cumberbatch starrer "Doctor Strange" as she only wants to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as a superhero.

Writer of "Doctor Strange", C Robert Cargill, said that director Scott Derrickson wanted to rope in Chastain for the role of Strange's former lover Dr. Christine Palmer, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

Once Chastain turned down the role, it then went to actress Rachel McAdams.

Speaking on the Junkfood Cinema podcast, Cargill said: "The interesting thing that Hollywood's starting to find out is that a lot of the actresses out there want to be superheroes as much as the actors do.

"I know this happened with Scott. He went to Jessica Chastain to get her on Doctor Strange because we were considering her ... (and) she's like, 'Hey, look, this project sounds awesome, and I would love to do it. But I'm only going to get one shot at being in a Marvel film and becoming a Marvel character, and I trained in ballet, and I really want to wear a cape.'

"And that was the coolest rejection ever. She wanted to be the superhero, not badass doctor Night Nurse."

Chastain did play Vuk, the leader of a shape-shifting alien race known as the D'Bari, in the 2019 film 'Dark Phoenix', which is based on the Marvel Comics characters the "X-Men".