James Gunn would not have done Superman if he hadn’t been able to find the perfect actor

When James Gunn Assigned Superman He clarified one thing … if he did not find the perfect actor to play the man of steel, the film was not happening. Gunn told GQ:

“I said from the beginning, if I don’t find Superman, I’m not going to make this movie. Because I knew that this depended on the boy who plays Superman.”

That research became the distinctive saga of the summer 2023. Hundreds of actors made the audition. David Corenswet (Pearl, Hollywood) ,, Nicholas Hault (Mad Max: Fury Road), AND Tom Brittney (Grantchester) emerged as top contenders. Followed on the screen test with complete costumes, chemical readings with potential lanes of Lois and scenes of debates written between daily journalists on the planet. But for Gunn, he has always returned to a name … Corenswet. He said:

“From the beginning, it was the boy who beat, frankly.”

Lois was also easy. “Rachel [Brosnahan] it was probably [only] The eighth lois I saw read “, he noticed Gunn.” You [think]God, is it really right? Can it be so easy? “

For Gunn, it wasn’t just about finding someone who looked like the part. Superman had to feel real as Clark Kent, a journalist raised on the farm; Like Superman, the public icon; And as a vulnerable being able to heat and humor. Gunn explained:

“I couldn’t choose someone who did not work. I couldn’t go for someone who had the appearance, but he didn’t have the ribs. I couldn’t go for someone who had the ribs but I didn’t have a look.

“I couldn’t choose someone who had the appearance and ribs, but I could not do the comic parts or could not make the most vulnerable aspects.”

Corenswet, an actor trained in Juilliard, seemed born for this to Gunn’s eyes. His performance brought a touch of old school that resisted immediately with the director. Corenswet said:

“James told me that the only thing that surprised him, this meant something for him initially, was the humor that I led to that first scene.

“I immediately read it in the terms of the films I grew up on, that they are singing in the rain and his girlfriend on Friday, and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films. Only timing and the scheme and style of humor – and it was discovered that it was what it was imagining.”

Also Nicholas Haultwhich in the end was chosen as Lex Luthor saw and said:

“When I met David for the first time at the screen test, he had found a stain of sunshine in the studio and was relaxing among the readings, almost uploading as he does as superman from the power of the sun, and there was something in meeting him at that moment … I want to say, obviously it seems exactly how you imagine Clark Kent and Superman to watch.”

Hoult added:

“He has this old Hollywood person who makes him feel even more relevant and timely for this version of Superman and Clark. It is his charisma, his idiosyncrasies. It is what idolizes, that era of the big acting and musical screen.”

And that’s exactly what Gunn was aimed at, a super -time -rooted Superman, sailing in a cynical world. A superman who reflects “truth, justice and human way” in a society in which kindness is often fired as obsolete.